The key facts

  • France denied entry to settlement council head Yossi Dagan; Israeli media call the case unprecedented
  • According to Dagan, a police representative called the decision political
  • After being denied entry, Dagan spent three days in meetings with officials and parliamentarians in Prague

Entry denied in Paris

French immigration authorities denied entry to Yossi Dagan, who heads the settlement council in the north of the occupied West Bank. This was reported by the Israeli channel i24NEWS, citing Dagan's office: he was stopped at a Paris airport upon arrival, where he had planned meetings with elected French officials. According to the channel, there had previously been no known cases of a Western country directly barring the head of an Israeli regional council in the occupied West Bank from entry.

Stated grounds and reaction

Dagan's office said that at passport control he was questioned further, and an official presented documents mentioning his role in the construction of 35 settlements in the occupied West Bank and his efforts to restore Gush Katif — a bloc of settlements evacuated from the Gaza Strip in 2005. French authorities have not yet publicly confirmed these reasons. Israel's Channel 15 reported that Dagan told Israeli Army Radio that a French police representative had called the decision political. 'Today it is me, and tomorrow it could be any other Israeli citizen,' the outlet quoted him as saying. i24NEWS itself described the incident as a 'diplomatic precedent'.

Context: Europe's hardening stance

After being denied entry, Dagan traveled to Prague, where, according to i24NEWS, he spent three days in meetings with senior Czech government officials and members of both chambers of parliament. The case fits into the framework of steps taken by the European Union: on February 13, 2024, France announced an entry ban on 28 Israelis accused of attacks on Palestinian civilians, and on March 18 of the same year, EU foreign ministers reached a political agreement on sanctions against such individuals. On July 13, the head of European diplomacy, Kaja Kallas, said that a majority of member states support measures concerning trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank. According to the Anadolu agency, about 770,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, in hundreds of settlements and outposts; UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of 2016 declares that settlements in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 have no legal validity and constitute a flagrant violation of international law.