The Israeli website that broke the story is not well known, but the content was so appealing that Palestinians jumped all over it. The site, Debkafile, claims that US Secretary of State John Kerry offered to help the Palestinians build their long-awaited airport and to get Israel to turn over a large section of land that includes part of the Dead Sea. The US offer, reportedly the first in a series, aims to encourage the Palestinian leader to go back to face-to-face talks with the Israelis without the latter stopping settlements or defining the eastern borders of Israel.

The reason that the report from a totally unknown site has received so much attention, including from Palestine’s Maan News Agency, is because it touches a nerve among the movement-restricted Palestinians, especially those living in the West Bank. The only exit and entry from this landlocked area is the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge, which is under the total control of the Israeli army. Even the partial control by Palestinian police that existed for a short period prior to 2000 has long been cancelled. All attempts to return the Palestinian police to the bridge, including the commitments in the Road Map, have been rejected despite Palestinian security receiving high marks from the Israeli army for its ability to control the region.

Palestinians traveling in and out of the West Bank are totally at the mercy of the Israeli army, which among other things bans travel after 10 p.m. and restricts travel on Fridays and Saturdays. Palestinian travelers often have to stay an extra night in Jordan because of the restricted hours, and long delays are common during the summer months when many Palestinian families working in the Gulf and other places come to visit during school vacations. Efforts to open the bridge 24 hours have been rejected by the Israeli army, which considers its location a military area.

The Israeli airport authority, which took over the bridge's administration in January 2013, has also failed to implement any major steps to ease the travel of Palestinians except for a renovation that included a shelter outside the terminal for Palestinians waiting in the hot Jericho sun.