The Supreme Court on Monday ordered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to allow Palestinians from the West Bank to enter Israel and attend a joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day ceremony in Tel Aviv this week.
The court upheld an appeal against Netanyahu's refusal, as Israel's defense minister, to grant entry to 176 Palestinians for Tuesday's event. The court ordered Netanyahu to grant entry permits for 100 Palestinians to enter Israel for the ceremony.
Memorial Day for the Fallen Soldiers of Israel and Victims of Terrorism begins on Tuesday night.
It is marked with mournful ceremonies and visits to cemeteries by bereaved. For the past 14 years an Israeli group, Combatants for Peace, have organized an alternative Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Ceremony that aims to "acknowledge the pain of those living on the 'other side,'" and brings together Israeli and Palestinian families bereaved by the conflict.
Israeli authorities had cited the precarious security situation amid rocket fire by Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip and Israeli retaliatory airstrikes over the weekend, but the judges pointed out that Netanyahu's decision had been made before this weekend's escalation of hostilities along the Gaza border.
The judges noted that they had rejected a similar move last year to bar Palestinians from attending the ceremony.
Last year's commemorations were marred by then-Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman's dispute with the event's organizers after he had barred bereaved Palestinian families from taking part in the ceremony.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the Supreme Court's decision was "wrong and disappointing."
"There is no place for a memorial ceremony comparing the blood of our people and that of terrorists," the prime minister said.
