The French foreign ministry on Saturday imposed a ban on the Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, entering France over his \u201cunacceptable actions\u201d toward activists detained this week on a flotilla attempting to break an Israeli blockade of Gaza.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ben-Gvir posted a video of himself this week taunting the activists, who were shown handcuffed and pinned to the deck of a ship, after Israeli troops apprehended them. The flotilla\u2019s participants later said they were beaten and assaulted while detained.<\/p>\n
The video ignited outrage abroad, particularly in Italy, Germany and other countries whose citizens had participated in the flotilla. The U.S. ambassador in Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee, issued a rare denunciation of Mr. Ben-Gvir\u2019s conduct. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel also condemned his actions.<\/p>\n
Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot, the French foreign minister, said in a statement announcing the ban that Mr. Ben-Gvir\u2019s actions followed \u201ca long list of shocking statements and actions, incitement to hatred and violence against Palestinians.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Barrot said that while he disapproved of the flotilla, France could not \u201ctolerate French nationals being threatened, intimidated or abused in this way, especially by a public official.\u201d<\/p>\n
He called for the European Union to formally sanction him, joining Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, who called Mr. Ben-Gvir\u2019s actions \u201cintolerable\u201d and demanded that Israel apologize.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Mr. Ben-Gvir did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
More than 400 people participated in the flotilla, the latest such effort by pro-Palestinian activists to symbolically break Israel\u2019s blockade of Gaza as a form of protest. Israeli forces detained them at sea earlier this week, and brought them to Israel where nearly all were deported to nearby Turkey.<\/p>\n
After their release, some of the activists said they had been abused in Israeli detention. A statement released on Friday by the Global Sumud Flotilla, which helped organize the action, said some of the activists had been kicked and beaten, while others had been sexually assaulted. The New York Times is looking into their accounts, but has not independently confirmed them.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military denied \u201callegations of abuse\u201d by Israeli soldiers \u201cduring the operations to protect the legal naval security blockade.\u201d Israel\u2019s prison service, whose guards oversee detainees, said the accusations were \u201cfalse and entirely without factual basis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other countries whose citizens participated in the flotilla have condemned or expressed concern over the events aboard.<\/p>\n
Eight German nationals were among the roughly 400 activists of the flotilla who arrived in Istanbul on Thursday evening, according to Josef Hinterseher, a spokesman for the German foreign ministry. German consular officials met with the activists upon their arrival and found that several had suffered injuries, he said; the activists have since been sent for medical care in the Turkish capital.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe naturally expect a full investigation, because some of the allegations being made are serious, and there is, as you know, a political official \u2014 Israel\u2019s Minister of Police \u2014 who has behaved in an unspeakable manner,\u201d the spokesman said, referring to Mr. Ben-Gvir.<\/p>\n
The French announcement was the latest diplomatic penalty for Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s government, which has grown increasingly isolated on the world stage. The rift has been most pronounced with Europe, which has fiercely criticized Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ben-Gvir has become emblematic of what many see as an Israeli coalition dominated by hard-liners and religious nationalists. Before his rise to power, he had been convicted of incitement to racism and was an avowed admirer of Meir Kahane, an Israeli American extremist who wanted to strip Arab Israelis of citizenship.<\/p>\n
As national security minister, Mr. Ben-Gvir has called for Israel to seize control of the Gaza Strip indefinitely and \u201cencourage\u201d its two million Palestinians to leave \u201cvoluntarily.\u201d He has proudly described how he ordered conditions for Palestinian prisoners reduced to to the bare minimum.<\/p>\n
The Israeli public defenders\u2019 office, a unit in the country\u2019s justice ministry, said in a report unsealed last year<\/a> that Palestinian prisoners had been held in extreme conditions, including severe hunger, with little access to sunlight and fresh air.<\/p>\n Last year, Canada, the United Kingdom and a few other countries imposed travel and financial restrictions on Mr. Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the Israeli finance minister. <\/p>\n Earlier this month, the European Union approved plans to impose restrictions<\/a> on several Israeli individuals and organizations for involvement in Jewish extremist attacks on Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. About half a million Israeli settlers reside in the occupied territory along roughly three million Palestinians.<\/p>\n