Israel & Passports

[zzyzxuk]

The UK Foreign Office has just changed their travel advice for Israel saying that one should hand over their passports to Israeli authorities "only if absolutely necessary"...

 

I have no idea how to interpret this - presumably at the border, you're going to HAVE to show them your passport, don't you?

 

Is there a period of time when the passport might be out of your sight - as this seems to be what they're most worried about...(Presumably they'd be photocopying it or whatever they do when they "clone" passports?)

[jenny wren]

We have just returned from the Pharoahs and Promised land itinerary on Spirit and Thomson collected all the passports before arrival in Israel and then each passenger had to collect their own passport from an Israeli official at a given time ......one presumes that there was a Thomson representative with the passports at all times but of course we don't know that.

 

This may be a question for Thomson Head Office ??

 

Having said that I do think that the recent problems with passports was of British people who actually live in Israel and not visitors....