Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a doctor who spent 43 days in Gaza treating the wounded in the Israeli war, said he was refused entry to France where he was due to give a speech to the Senate.
“I am at Charles De Gaulle airport. They prevent me from entering France. I am supposed to speak in the French Senate today,” Abu-Sitta posted on social media platform X on Saturday.
“Fortress Europe silences witnesses to the genocide while Israel kills them in prison,” added the famous Anglo-Palestinian plastic surgeon who is also rector of the University of Glasgow.
Abou Sitta was placed in a waiting area at the airport and will be deported, according to French senator Raymonde Poncet Monge, a Green MP who invited him to speak in the Senate.
The president of the Greens group in the Senate, Guillaume Gontard, called the decision to block Abu-Sitta “scandalous” and said he was negotiating with the interior and foreign ministries to reverse the decision. However, he added that the doctor would “probably” be sent back to the UK.
Posting on X later Saturday, Poncet Monge said the seminar was able to broadcast Abu-Sitta via video conference so he could speak. “We are scandalized that he cannot be present among us,” she said.
Thanks to the mobilization of lawyers, we were able to obtain a videoconference link with @GhassanAbuSitt1 !
We are outraged that he cannot be present among us.#Gaza#ColloquyPalestine pic.twitter.com/OSxyKwuaGJ
— Raymonde Poncet Monge 🇵🇸 🇺🇦 (@PoncetRaymonde) May 4, 2024
Abu-Sitta posted on X that he had been refused entry to France due to a ban imposed by Germany last month. “They say the Germans banned my entry into Europe for a year,” he wrote.
A French police source confirmed to the AFP news agency that France could not admit the doctor because it was bound by Germany’s ban on his entry into Europe’s borderless Schengen zone, both of which countries are members.
The French ministries of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Paris Airport have not commented on what happened or given an explanation.
“The McCarthyist cancer from Germany to France”
In April, Abu-Sitta was supposed to speak at the Palestinian Congress in Berlin when Germany refused him entry. He said he was questioned for hours at the airport before being told he was not allowed to enter the country.
Germany is one of Israel’s largest military suppliers, having sent 326.5 million euros ($353.7 million) worth of equipment and weapons in 2023, according to Ministry of Defense data. ‘Economy.
There was “pressure from the federal government” to cancel the Palestinian Congress, organizer Nadija Samour said at the time, adding that Germany was “actively and illegally” trying to prevent the event.
On Saturday, protesters and critics condemned the EU’s treatment of Abu-Sitta.
“Macron’s France shames us. Ghassan Abu Sitta MUST be able to come to France and bear witness to the horrors seen and experienced in Gaza,” said Mathilde Panot, a member of the French National Assembly in a post on X.
Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister who was also refused to speak at the Palestinian Congress in Berlin with Abu-Sitta, said that “the McCarthyite cancer has spread from Germany to France.”
“It is time to rise up across the EU against this blatant attempt to protect Israeli apartheid from any rational and humanist criticism,” he said on X.
He also warned that he would take legal action against German authorities, who refused his lawyers’ request to inform him of the reasons for his entry ban into Germany.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed and 77,800 people injured during the Israeli offensive in Gaza since October 7.
On Friday, Abu-Sitta told Tel Aviv Tribune how, during his time in Gaza, hospitals were turned into rubble and “became sites of mass graves of Palestinians murdered in cold blood by Israeli forces, their hands tied behind the back “.
Abu-Sitta had been invited to France by the group of left-wing environmentalists in the Senate to speak on Saturday at a conference on the situation in Gaza, according to the Senate press service. The meeting included testimony from doctors, journalists and international legal experts with Gaza-related experience.