French historian Vincent Lemire in Jerusalem, on January 25, 2022. RONALDO SCHEMIDT / AFP
A French historian has been banned from travelling to Israel after he criticized Israeli military operations in the besieged Gaza Strip, he said on Monday, January 12. Vincent Lemire was head of the French Research Center in Jerusalem from 2019 to August 2023, before Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, triggering an Israeli military response that has ravaged Gaza.
The academic, who specializes in the history of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, has since publicly spoken out about the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and called for France to sanction Israel over the conflict's mounting death toll. He has also called for the release of Israeli hostages.
He was due to travel to Israel on Sunday with a two-year electronic travel authorisation for the country (ETA-IL) that he had previously obtained, but four days earlier, he received an email.
"Due to a change in circumstances in your case, the ETA-IL approval (...) which was granted to you as of 27/02/2025 is revoked," it read, according to a screenshot Lemire sent Agence France-Presse (AFP). Contacted by AFP, the Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
