Baroness Tonge – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Tonge on 2016-04-11.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made to the government of Israel regarding the extra restrictions placed on both Muslims and Christians wanting to worship in Jerusalem this year due to the Jewish festival of Purim.

Baroness Anelay of St Johns

While we have not raised this specific issue with the Israeli authorities, we remain deeply concerned about restrictions on freedom of movement between the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It remains difficult for Palestinians to enter East Jerusalem for religious worship. We continue to work closely with the Quartet and EU partners to call on Israel to ease access restrictions.