Human rights campaigners say that despite an official request from Palestine Olympic Committee (POC) leader Jibril Rajoub, Israeli military authorities have not issued the 21 male and one woman runners the travel documents needed to compete at the race in Bethlehem on Sunday (April 21).

"The Israelis should look at this purely as a sporting event," said Samia al-Wazir, a spokeswoman for the POC.

"It has nothing to do with politics.

"This is an event in the West Bank and every Palestinian, not just athletes, should have the right to attend."


Israel military, which strictly controls movement in and out of Gaza and governs entry to the West Bank via the border with Jordan, said the athletes' cases were not "urgent" enough for them to be granted entry.

"The entrance of the Gaza Strip residents to Israeli territory, and their passage to the West Bank, is possible only in exceptional humanitarian cases, mainly urgent medical cases," read a statement from defence ministry body in charge of activities in the Palestinian territories Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT).

"The request in question didn't apply as one of those cases."

The statement added that this was because Gaza was ruled by Hamas, which Israel considers a "terror organisation, which wages war against the state of Israel and its civilians."

The news has attracted criticised from human rights groups such as Gisha, an Israeli organisation that monitors movement in and out of Gaza, which has sent a letter to COGAT appealing the decision.


Several Israeli athletes have also sent faxes urging COGAT to rethink the decision.

"Our clients, who trained intensively for the race which was to have taken place in Gaza, were deeply disappointed by its cancellation," Gisha legal director Nomi Heger wrote.

"They would be honoured to participate in the first all-Palestinian marathon."

She also claimed that Al-Masri had been issued permits to travel via the Erez Crossing, for training abroad and in the West Bank, in the past and that several thousand Palestinians are allowed to enter from Gaza each month subject to security checks.

This latest disappointment is the second time this month that Gazan runners have been unable to compete in races after the United Nations cancelled its annual Gaza marathon, which was scheduled for April 11, when Hamas refused to allow women to take part.

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