Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

One way Flight to Israel

Country forums / Middle East / Israel

Hi, I will be arriving from London on a one way flight to Tel Aviv since I want to travel overland into Africa, will this be a problem on a Canadian passport?
Also, can I ask not to have my passport stamped?
Thanks

Also, can I ask not to have my passport stamped?

=========================================
You certainly can. And in 90+% of the cases it won't be stamped (never 100% certain).
But remember: If you are going overland to Africa, that means you'll leave Israel via the Taba crossing to Egypt. The Egyptian authorities will definitely stamp your passport showing that you entered from Israel, so you will have 'Israel evidence' in your passport regardless of what the Israeli authorities do. For countries such as Iran, Syria and Lebanon (and perhaps others) this 'indirect evidence' is just as damning as the Israel stamp itself.

1

Assuming you successfully avoid the stamping of your passport on arrival in Israel you have to fly out of Israel to avoid the indirect evidence of a trip to Israel. For you that means a flight to Amman or Cairo.

2

Just don`t let your Canadian passport out of your hands in Israel! :)

3

Just to add to #1 and #2, if your travel plan includes travelling into Sudan, since you ‘’want to travel overland into Africa’’, you may consider;
1/ Either excluding Israel this time, (even though I remember you have an interest in Kibbutz Lotan and permaculture) and flying directly to Cairo.
2/ Going to Israel, and from there onto Egypt. And then you would request a new Canadian passport in Cairo, before you apply for your Sudanese visa in either Cairo or Aswan.

4

1 - Israeli officials usually don't ask if you have a return ticket or not. In case they do, explain why you don't and it should be ok.

2 - Israeli officials usually agree to put the stamp on a separate piece of paper, but it's not guaranteed. If you plan on travelling to countries that dislike Israel, I suggest you ask for a second passport. Canadian embassies deliver one-year passports for Israel on request.

3 - You'll need to leave Israel by plane if you don't want evidence of your passage in the country. Israeli and Egyptian officials in Taba usually accept not to stamp your passport, but if you have an exit visa of Egypt and not an entry visa, you'll betray that you've been to Israel.

5

As mentioned above, you should definitely consider the plane option, especially in light of the security problems inherent to land travel in the Sinai now - just last week a group of Chinese were kidnapped and released, as well as two elderly women (and Egyptian guide) traveling on US passports and visiting Santa Caterina.

6

I just wanted to update those of you who replied and those who were interested in the post. I got into the country on my one way ticket.
They asked me loads of questions, mostly what I intend to do, how much money I had, etc. I told them I was over landing it to Africa, he took a long look at me and then gave me the stamp.
Although from the looks of things a man ahead of me in line got taken into a room for questioning. I would suggest that perhaps since he was an older man coming in on a one way it looked more suspicious.

Anyways, good luck to you all if you are attempting the same!

7