A European Union parliamentary delegation has canceled its scheduled visit to Jerusalem and Ramallah after Israel barred entry to French MP Rima Hassan and delegation leader MP Lynn Boylan, along with two E.U. staffers.
The bloc’s mission to the Palestinians confirmed the trip’s termination in a statement to The Times of Israel on Monday.
The Israeli Interior Ministry cited Hassan’s support for boycotting Israel as the reason for her ban, though the E.U. mission stated no official explanations were given for the other denials. Despite three other MPs being allowed entry, Boylan chose to cancel the entire trip.
Israeli Interior Minister Moshe Arbel said Hassan has “consistently worked to promote boycotts against Israel in addition to numerous public statements both on social media and in media interviews.”
Arbel’s decision followed a recommendation from Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism.
“The State of Israel is not obligated to allow the entry of any official from a foreign country, including members of parliament, if they work to boycott and undermine its legitimacy,” said Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli.
“Rima Hassan leads hostile campaigns against Israel, calls for boycotts and encourages economic sanctions,” he added. “We will use all the tools at our disposal to prevent the exploitation of our democracy for anti-Israeli purposes.”
Boylan, who chairs the European Parliament EU-Palestine delegation, and Hassan were refused entry at Ben-Gurion Airport and ordered to return to Brussels.
A 32-year-old French jurist and politician of Palestinian origin from the far-left La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed”) party, Hassan recently blamed Israel for the Bibas family’s deaths, repeating a Hamas claim made shortly after their capture. “Kfir, Ariel and Shiri Bibas were killed by an Israeli strike. This had also been communicated and confirmed in November 2023. Thank you for being accurate,” wrote Hassan, who has defended Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre.
Forensic analyses performed in Israel found that mother Shiri Bibas and her sons Kfir and Ariel were not killed by an Israeli airstrike but murdered in cold blood by Hamas terrorists just weeks after being captured.
On Sunday, Hassan tried to justify Palestinian terrorism against Israelis, tweeting: “Resolution 3070 (XXVIII) of the United Nations General Assembly: Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples to free themselves from colonial and foreign domination and control by all means in their power, including armed struggle.”
Boylan is a member of Ireland’s Sinn Féin party, one of the most outspoken critics of the Israeli government. Ireland’s largest opposition party said on Friday that it will not attend the traditional St. Patrick’s Day visit to the White House in protest against President Donald Trump’s plan to resettle Gazans while the war-torn coastal enclave is rebuilt into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”
