The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office keeps a wide advise-against line across the West Bank. It advises against all travel to the Tulkarm, Jenin and Tubas governorates, with Route 90 in Tubas the one exception, and against all but essential travel to the rest of the West Bank. The stated exceptions to that wider line are East Jerusalem, Bethlehem Governorate, Ramallah Municipality, Jericho and the areas south of it, Highway 1, Route 443 and Highway 45. The advice was last refreshed on 22 July 2026.
The reason that line matters this week is a fresh escalation. On 11 August 2026 the UN Security Council met on the situation in the West Bank, and its briefing described violence at a new high for the year. According to that briefing, 76 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in 2026, among them 18 children, and 3 Israelis have been killed in confrontations. It reported that about 3,800 Palestinians have been displaced this year, nearly half of them children.
The briefing also pointed to specific operations on the ground, including a large-scale Israeli operation in the Qalandia refugee camp between 5 and 7 August. Council members called for accountability for those responsible for violence and for full implementation of Resolution 2803 of 2025, and they raised continued settlement expansion as a driver of instability.
Operator implication: the West Bank is an advise-against environment from end to end, and the escalation the UN describes is a reason to treat movement there as high-risk rather than routine. Firms with personnel or clients in the territory should keep the Tulkarm, Jenin and Tubas governorates firmly outside scope, hold the rest to essential travel only, and plan around checkpoints and security operations that can close routes at short notice. Duty-of-care sign-off and insurance should track the current advise-against boundaries rather than an older map, because travel taken against FCDO advice can invalidate cover.
