The China Mail - Israel revokes French researcher's travel permit

Vincent Lemire was head of the French Research Centre in Jerusalem from 2019 to August 2023, before Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering an Israeli military response that has ravaged Gaza.

The academic, who specialises in the history of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, has since publicly spoken out about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and called for France to sanction Israel over the conflict's mounting death toll. He has also called for the release of Israeli hostages.

He was due to travel to Israel on Sunday with a two-year electronic travel authorisation for the country (ETA-IL) that he had previously obtained, but four days earlier, he received an email.

"Due to a change in circumstances in your case, the ETA-IL approval... which was granted to you as of 27/02/2025 is revoked," it read, according to a screenshot Lemire sent AFP.

Contacted by AFP, the Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

"My positions are not new, but I have never boycotted Israel. I have regularly issued invitations to Israeli academics and I have been going to Israel for 25 years, so I am very surprised," Lemire told AFP.

"In terms of academic freedom, it's very problematic," said the researcher, who had planned some 20 meetings and seminars with Israeli and Palestinian researchers and students during his trip.

His ban comes after Israel at the start of the month banned 37 foreign humanitarian organisations from accessing the Gaza Strip after they refused to share lists of their Palestinian employees with government officials.

"As with the 37 NGOs banned from working in Gaza, it feels like we're in a dynamic of settling scores," said Lemire, who is trying to have the ban revoked.

Lemire and former Israeli ambassador to France Elie Barnavi in August urged President Emmanuel Macron in French daily newspaper Le Monde to slap sanctions on Israel to avoid having to recognise a "graveyard" as a Palestinian state.

Macron recognised Palestinian statehood in September, before a fragile ceasefire took hold in Gaza the following month.

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