PARIS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0France on Saturday banned Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, citing his \u201cunspeakable\u201d behavior targeting activists from a humanitarian aid flotilla to Gaza who were detained by his police force.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs of today, Itamar Ben-Gvir is banned from entering French territory. This decision follows his unspeakable actions toward French and European citizens who were passengers on the Global Sumud Flotilla,\u201d the French foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, announced in a post on X. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot tolerate that French nationals can be threatened, intimidated or brutalized in this way \u2014 all the more so by a public official,\u201d Barrot posted, calling on the European Union to also sanction Ben-Gvir.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press has sought comment from Ben-Gvir\u2019s spokesperson and the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
This week, Ben-Gvir sparked global outrage after promoting a video of himself taunting detained flotilla activists. <\/p>\n
In one clip, Ben-Gvir is seen waving a large Israeli flag over hunched-over detainees whose hands appear to be bound. In another, he taunts a kneeling detainee whose wrists are zip-tied, yelling, \u201cAm Yisrael Chai\u201d at him \u2014 Hebrew for \u201cThe nation of Israel lives.\u201d In a third, detainees can be seen \u2014 foreheads to the floor of an outdoor pen \u2014 as the Israeli national anthem plays and armed guards encircle them.<\/p>\n
Foreign leaders \u2014 and even Netanyahu \u2014 condemned Ben-Gvir\u2019s on-camera treatment of some 430 flotilla detainees.<\/p>\n
In his post, the French minister was also critical of flotilla activists, who were attempting to breach Israel\u2019s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip to deliver food and medical aid. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe disapprove of this flotilla\u2019s approach, which produces no useful effect and places an additional burden on diplomatic and consular services,\u201d Barrot wrote. <\/p>\n
The flotilla of 50 boats was intercepted in international waters some 250 miles off the coast of Israel. Detained activists accused Israeli forces of mistreatment, describing beatings, use of tasers and attack dogs.<\/p>\n
Poland has also sanctioned Ben-Gvir, announcing a five-year-ban on Thursday. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn the democratic world we do not abuse and gloat over people in custody,\u201d Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski posted. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS\u00a0\u2014\u00a0France on Saturday banned Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, citing his \u201cunspeakable\u201d behavior targeting activists from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[32918,9103,43174,43172,382,43087,496,43173,37,18863,1375,42864,7616,42863,29314],"class_list":["post-128071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-activist","tag-ben-gvir","tag-flotilla-detainee-taunt","tag-flotilla-remark","tag-france","tag-french-foreign-minister","tag-gaza","tag-hunched-over-detainee","tag-israel","tag-israeli-force","tag-jean-noel-barrot","tag-mistreatment","tag-post","tag-taser","tag-use"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116625942936061360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}