Israel deports EU delegation to Palestine led by MEP Lynn Boylan

SINN FÉIN MEP Lynn Boylan has said that Israel refused to allow an official European Parliament delegation to travel through the country on the way to Palestine yesterday, describing it as “an insult to all members of the EU”.

Boylan is the chair of the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Palestine.

She was travelling with French MEP Rima Hassan, who is of Palestinian origin, and two senior EU officials. All four were refused entry to Israel. 

“I was due to travel to Palestine today as part of an official European Parliament delegation, but was refused permission to travel by Israel, and deported,” Boylan said in a statement. 

The aim of the trip was to assess how EU funds are spent in Palestine. The delegation was due to visit East Jerusalem, the West Bank city of Ramallah and an UNRWA-run refugee camp. 

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemned the denial of entry as “outrageous” and “an affront to democratic values and international diplomatic norms”. 

“Israel, the occupying power, has no sovereignty over the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem nor legal right to deny access to Palestine, especially to official representatives on diplomatic missions,” the ministry said on X. 

“Israel’s decision to deny access is a calculated move to prevent European officials from witnessing firsthand the atrocities it is committing against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, West Bank and East Jerusalem,” the ministry said. 

An Israeli government spokesperson told The Journal that foreigners who have advocated for or participated in a boycott of Israel are not allowed to enter the country. 

“According to the Law of Entry to Israel, foreigners who have published a public call to impose a boycott on the State of Israel, as defined in the Law for the Prevention of Harm to the State of Israel through Boycotts, or has undertaken to participate in such a boycott, will not be authorised to enter Israel,” the spokesperson said. 

Both Boylan and Hassan have called for a boycott of Israel in the past. 

‘They took our passports’ 

Boylan told RTÉ Radio that the mission had been flagged with Israel well in advance of her departure. “They knew I was coming,” she said.

She said when they landed in Tel Aviv, “we were met at the door of the plane by a number of security officials. They then took us to an interrogation room”. 

“There were about 20 individuals, and we were filmed at all points by those individuals,” she said. She also said that Israeli authorities refused to answer any of their questions. 

“They then took our phones away, they took our iPads, they searched our bags, they escorted us to the bathroom, and they held us there for about an hour and 40 minutes.”

Boylan said the Israeli authorities provided “very little information”.

“They took our passports as well, and we didn’t get our passports back until we arrived in Belgium last night, so they had held on to them.

“Initially, we just thought that Rima Hassan was being refused entry, even though, again, they were aware that she was travelling, and they had not flagged in advance of her boarding the plane or in the weeks leading up to this that she couldn’t travel.”

Israel’s interior ministry announced that Hassan had been prevented from entering Israel but did not mention the other members of the delegation. 

“We didn’t realise that we were going to be also put back on the plane, because I was also with two officials from the European Parliament, very senior officials, until we were actually brought basically to the bridge, bringing us onto the plane.”

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Boylan also described how passengers on board the flight back to Belgium shouted abuse at the delegation and filmed them as they waited to take off. 

“For those civil servants to have their faces put out into the public domain, and is deeply concerning,” she said. 

In her statement, Boylan said that “Israel’s blocking of MEPs and senior EU officials from travelling to Palestine is an insult to all in the EU”.  

“The EU is the largest donor of support to Palestine and its officials and elected representatives must be able to be on the ground in Palestine as part of this work.”

‘Particularly insulting’

Boylan said it was “particularly insulting” that the delegation was refused entry on the same day that the EU held a series of talks with Israel as part of the EU-Israel association council.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was in Brussels for the talks yesterday.

“The EU must respond to this disgraceful conduct by Israel,” Boylan said, adding that the refusal ”poses a real issue for the diplomatic relationship between the EU and Israel”.

“European leaders must send a message to Israel and make it clear that they cannot continue to act without consequences.”

Boylan told RTÉ that she would be raising the incident with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, as well as with the president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola. 

In a post on social media, French MEP Rima Hassan said: “The pro-Israeli trolls lie as much as the genocidal state they defend.”

She said that she was not the only person who was turned away, despite Israel’s interior ministry only naming her in its statement. 

In her social media post, she also shared a statement that said the refusal of entry “constitutes an attack on the institutions of the European Union”. 

She also said it was “time for the European Union to act. It is quite common for Israel to prevent parliamentarians from carrying out their work and missions,” adding that UN experts, NGOs and the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court have also been refused entry to Israel. 

The Israeli interior ministry had previously said Hassan would not be allowed to enter the country, accusing her of acting “on a regular basis to promote the boycott against Israel” and pointing to her prior public statements, which have been fiercely critical of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. 

Hassan has previously called Israel a “terrorist” state and accused its military of having “coldly executed Palestinian children”.

She is currently facing a court case in France on the charge of “apology for terrorism” after saying in a true-false interview given in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October, 2023 attack on Israel that it was “true” the group’s actions were legitimate.

She later said her words were taken out of context.

With reporting from AFP

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