The surgeon who helped treat patients during Israel’s war on Gaza was due to address the French Senate.
Ghassan Abu-Sitta, a doctor who spent 43 days in Gaza treating the wounded in Israel’s war, said he would be denied entry to France, where he was scheduled to give a speech to the Senate.
“I’m at Charles De Gaulle Airport. They are preventing me from entering France. “I am scheduled to speak to the French Senate today,” Abu-Sitta posted on the social media platform X on Saturday.
“Fortress Europe is silencing genocide witnesses while Israel is killing them in prison,” added the renowned British-Palestinian plastic surgeon, who is also rector of the University of Glasgow.
According to French Senator Raymonde Poncet Monge, a member of the Green Party who invited him to speak in the Senate, Abu Sitta was detained in a holding area at the airport and will be deported.
Senate Green Party leader Guillaume Gontard called the decision to block Abu-Sitta “scandalous” and said he was negotiating with the interior and foreign ministries to reverse the measure. However, he added that the doctor would “probably” be sent back to the UK.
I’m at Charles De Gaule Airport. They are preventing me from entering France. I’m scheduled to speak before the French Senate today. They say the Germans have banned me from entering Europe for a year.
— Ghassan Abu Sitta (@GhassanAbuSitt1) May 4, 2024
Abu-Sitta posted on social media that he was denied entry into France due to Germany’s one-year ban on entry into Europe.
Germany denied him entry last month, and France and Germany are part of Europe’s border-free Schengen area. He posted on X that he was being sent back to London.
The French foreign ministry, interior ministry, local police and the Paris airport authority declined to comment on the incident or issue a statement.
“McCarthyite cancer from Germany to France”
In April, Abu-Sitta was scheduled to speak at the Palestine Congress event in Berlin when Germany denied him entry. He said he was questioned for hours at the airport before being told he would not be allowed entry.
According to the Economy Ministry, Germany is one of Israel’s largest military suppliers, supplying equipment and weapons worth 326.5 million euros ($353.7 million) in 2023.
There was “pressure from the federal government” to cancel the Palestine Congress, organizer Nadija Samour said at the time, adding that Germany was “actively and illegally” trying to prevent the event.
On Saturday, demonstrators 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 witness the horrors seen and experienced in Gaza,” said Mathilde Panot, a member of the French National Assembly, in a post on X.
Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister, who was also barred from speaking to Abu-Sitta at the Berlin Palestine Congress, said that “the McCarthy cancer has spread from Germany to France.”
“It is time to stand up across the EU against this blatant attempt to shield apartheid Israel from rational, humanist criticism,” he said on X.
He also warned that he would take the German authorities to court because they rejected his lawyers’ demands that he be informed of the reasons for his ban from Germany.
More than 34,600 Palestinians have been killed and 77,800 people injured in the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip since October 7.
On Friday, Abu-Sitta told Al Jazeera that during his time in Gaza, hospitals had been reduced to rubble and “became mass graves of Palestinians murdered in cold blood by Israeli forces with their hands tied behind their backs.”
According to the Senate press service, Abu-Sitta was invited to France by the left-wing environmental group in the Senate to speak at a colloquium on the situation in Gaza on Saturday. The gathering included testimony from medical professionals, journalists and international legal experts with Gaza experience.