NABLUS, West Bank — On a Saturday in Nablus, people are lining in front of the al-Aqsa sweet shop. The place is packed. Staff member Mohammad al-Nabulsi says the shop receives more customers on the weekends than on weekdays because of Palestinians visiting Nablus from Israel. On weekends, the shop operates at a faster tempo to fill the large number of requests for kunafa, a Levantine cheese pastry.

In the last four years, some 90,000 Palestinians from Israel have been crossing into the West Bank annually, after a long hiatus that began with the 2000 intifada, when the security situation prohibited such travel or made it too difficult.

Areej Makroush, from the town of Kafr Kana in the Nazareth district, told Al-Monitor, “The West Bank has become our internal tourism destination for shopping and entertainment, especially given the low prices compared with the cities in Israel. … In the West Bank, we have a sense of belonging and security. We don’t feel estranged, unlike shopping in Israeli cities. Here, signs and banners are in Arabic, and we are not obliged to speak Hebrew.”

In Makroush's view, despite some security instability, the West Bank remains safer than Israeli cities. She buys her clothes in Jenin, and she regularly visits Ramallah and Nablus for leisure.