News Brief

The Tourism Ministry last week said that visits by tourists to Palestinian Authority controlled cities nearly doubled during the first nine months of 2008. According to Civil Administration statistics, about 1,123,000 tourists visited Bethlehem and Jericho through September, the highest number reported since the 2001 intifada. The mostly Christian tour groups were behind the 96.5% increase in the number of visitors to Bethlehem over the same period in 2007.

Officials attributed the rise to the significant increase of the security situation in the country, with the IDF taking aggressive action against terrorists and terror infrastructure. Tourism Minister Ruhama Avraham-Balila said that "Tourism stimulates economic growth and therefore represents a challenge and a mutual interest to the two nations. We have succeeded in restoring a sense of security to tourists in Israel and now we must work together to market the tourist destinations in Israel and the Palestinian Authority as attractive and appealing, for the sake of both our nations."