Prevention of Infiltration Law

The Prevention of Infiltration Law (Hebrew: חוק למניעת הסתננות (עבירות ושיפוט)) is a 1954 Israeli law that deals with the offense of unauthorized entry by armed and unarmed foreigners into Israel. It authorizes the Minister of Defense to order the immediate deportation of any detained infiltrator before or after their conviction.^{[citation needed]}

One of the primary objectives of the law was to prevent the entry of Palestinian fedayeen into Israel's territory, as defined by the 1949 Armistice Agreements, and allows for their expulsion.

After the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and the 1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight, many Palestinian Arabs who either fled or were expelled from their homes, whether they had altogether ventured beyond what became Israel (largely into the neighbouring Arab countries: Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt) or were internally displaced, tried for many years since then to return to the places they had left.

The law also originally designated Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and Yemen as "enemy states" of Israel. Egypt and Jordan were removed from the list after the signing of peace accords with these countries in 1979 and 1994, while Iran was added to the list after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.^[1] Israeli citizens may not visit countries designated as enemy states without a permit issued by the Israeli Interior Ministry. In January 2020, Israel's Minister of the Interior said Israeli citizens, both Muslims and Jews, can travel to Saudi Arabia for religious and business purposes.^[2] (These countries also generally ban entry of Israelis, though they have permitted entry in exceptional circumstances.)

The law was amended in 2013, in the context of Illegal immigration into Israel from Africa, setting limitations on the time an infiltrator could be detained, increasing the number of anti-infiltration enforcement officers, and increase compensation to infiltrators who willingly returned to their own countries.^[3]