10,000 Palestinians deprived Hajj in 3 years of war

The Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in the Gaza Strip said on Thursday that more than 10,000 Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have been deprived of performing the Hajj during the three years of the Israeli war of annihilation, amid the continued closure of the crossings and the war on the Strip.

This came during a press conference held by the Director of Public Relations at the Ministry, Amir Abu Al-Amreen, in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, pointing out that the number of Palestinians who have been deprived of performing Hajj during the past three years has exceeded 10,000 citizens, while the annual quota of the Gaza Strip is about 2508 pilgrims.

"2,473 Palestinians from Gaza have been passing the Hajj lottery since 2013 and are waiting to travel, 71 of them died before they could perform the obligation, while 2,402 others are still deprived of travel today," he said,  noting that thousands of Palestinians in Gaza completed the Hajj procedures years ago and paid the required fees, but are still unable to travel.

Abu al-Amreen stressed that depriving Palestinians in Gaza of the Hajj "represents a violation of international conventions that guarantee freedom of worship, movement and access to the holy sites."

He called on the international community, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to "intervene urgently" to ensure that Gaza pilgrims are able to travel and to work to open the crossings "for humanitarian and religious purposes".

Israel's closure of crossings prevents Gazans from pilgrimage

For the third year in a row, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip continue to be deprived of performing the Hajj, in light of Israel's continued closure of the Gaza Strip crossings and the deterioration of the humanitarian and security conditions as a result of Israel's war of extermination on the Strip.

On March 3, the Ministry of Awqaf in Ramallah announced the transfer of the remaining quota of pilgrims from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank and Jerusalem governorates, as an exceptional and temporary measure for the current year.

The ministry said at the time that the decision came "due to the lack of time specified in accordance with the Hajj protocol signed with the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," which set March 20, 2026, as the deadline for the issuance of Hajj visas.

860,000 pilgrims arrive in Saudi Arabia

The Saudi Minister of Hajj and Umrah announced on Wednesday evening, May 13, that the total number of pilgrims arriving in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to perform the Hajj rituals has so far exceeded 860 thousand pilgrims, according to the latest official statistics so far.

 The data showed that the air ports received the largest percentage of pilgrims, as more than 820,000 pilgrims arrived through them, while more than 35,000 pilgrims entered through land ports, while the number of pilgrims arriving through sea ports exceeded 4,000 pilgrims.

This coincided with a significant expansion of digital initiatives and services for the Hajj system this year, as more than 240,000 pilgrims benefited from the Makkah Road initiative, which allows the completion of travel checks at the airports of exporting countries before arriving in the Kingdom, all of which contributed to reducing the time of completing entry procedures from 120 minutes to only 15 minutes per pilgrim.