JERUSALEM (JTA) — Three Palestinian firefighters were refused entry into Israel for a ceremony honoring Palestinian firemen who helped battle the Carmel blaze.
Only seven of the 10 firemen were to be allowed in for the ceremony that was scheduled to take place Sunday afternoon in the Druze village of Usfiya. The ceremony was canceled.
The Israel Defense Forces said the denial of entry for the three firemen was a bureaucratic error. The list of names did not include the firemen’s ID numbers, the IDF said, and that it did not receive the list in time. The army told Haaretz that it is working to get the correct permits and that the ceremony would be rescheduled, Haaretz reported.
Israeli-Arab lawmaker Ahmed Tibi called the incident "not just a march of folly or a theater of the absurd but stupidity and the normative lordly attitude of the occupation regime."
In a statement, the Palestinian Authority said that "It’s not clear how the same firefighters who got permits to go out and help snuff the fire now are now refused permits to their honoring ceremony."
"We did this despite the occupation because it was our humane duty," the PA statement added. "We knew the occupation would still be here after our assistance."
The Palestinian firefighters were honored over the weekend by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
“Our neighbors faced a tragedy and it was our duty to do our humanitarian work toward our neighbors to protect the environment and human life,” Abbas said during the ceremony in his office in Ramallah.
