Poland to impose entry ban on Israeli security minister over treatment of Gaza activists

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Poland has moved to impose an entry ban on Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir over his treatment of detained activists, including Polish citizens, from a flotilla seeking to reach Gaza.

Its decision came after Ben-Gvir posted a video showing him taunting the activists while they were kneeling on the ground with their hands restrained behind their backs. His actions have been widely condemned by international leaders, and also Israel’s own prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

“You may not treat Polish citizens who have committed no crime in this way,” wrote Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski on social media on Wednesday evening, sharing Ben-Gvir’s video.

“In the democratic world we do not abuse and gloat over people in custody,” he added. “We demand justice for our citizens and consequences for you.”

In a further statement on Thursday morning, Sikorski announced that he had summoned the chargé d’affaires at the Israeli embassy “in order to convey to him our expressions of outrage and to demand an apology for the utterly inappropriate conduct of a member of the Israeli government”.

Sikorski added that Poland “demands the immediate release of Polish citizens and that they be treated in a manner consistent with international standards”.

Later on Thursday, foreign ministry spokesman Maciej Wewiór announced that Sikorski “submitted a request to the interior ministry to ban Itamar Ben-Gvir from entering the territory of Poland due to his actions”, reported news website Interia.

Subsequently, interior minister Marcin Kierwiński confirmed that he had “ordered the initiation of a formal procedure to enter Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on the list of foreigners whose stay on the territory of Poland is undesirable”. Kierwiński added that he “holds the same view” as Sikorski on the issue.

The controversy stems from Israel’s action against the Global Sumud Flotilla, which organises maritime convoys seeking to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza and bring aid to the Palestinian territory.

On Tuesday last week, its latest flotilla set sail from a port in Turkey. A week later, Israeli authorities intercepted around 50 of its ships and detained around 430 of its activists, according to the Global Sumud Flotilla.

A spokesman for the flotilla’s Polish contingent, Rafał Piotrowski, told the Polish Press Agency (PAP) on Tuesday that all three of its members, including two Polish citizens, had been detained.

On Wednesday, the Polish foreign ministry expressed “great concern [at] the actions taken by the Israeli armed forces” against the flotilla. On Thursday, Wewiór confirmed that the two detained Poles were expected to be deported from Israel that same day.

While Israel’s boarding of the ships and detention of the activists drew criticism in some quarters, particular anger was stoked by the video published by Ben-Gvir on Wednesday, in which he is seen waving an Israeli flag in front of the captive detainees and taunting them.

“Welcome to Israel, we are the landlords,” Ben-Gvir, a hardline far-right and anti-Arab figure, is heard saying at one point. “Look at them now, see how they look now, not heroes and nothing at all.”

His actions have been condemned by a number of world leaders and officials, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas and the US ambassador to Israel.

Even Netanyahu, the head of the government in which Ben-Gvir serves, said that his national security minister’s actions were “not in line with Israel’s values”.

Poland has long had difficult relations with Israel. Under the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government, which ruled Poland from 2015 to 2023, the two countries often clashed, in particular over issues relating to World War Two and Holocaust history.

In 2021, Poland withdrew its ambassador to Israel amid a row over a proposed restitution law that Israel said would harm Holocaust survivors. The current Polish government finally appointed a new ambassador last year, though it has also often been in conflict with Israel, especially over the war in Gaza.

In 2024, the Polish president and government criticised remarks by the Israeli ambassador about the death of a Polish aid worker, Damian Soból, killed in an Israeli strike on a humanitarian convoy in Gaza. The ambassador later apologised for the incident.

Last year, Israel criticised Prime Minister Donald Tusk after he suggested that Israeli politicians were causing the starvation of mothers and children in Gaza. In April this year, Poland criticised a new Israeli law making death by hanging the default punishment for Palestinian West Bank residents convicted of deadly terrorist acts.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: שי קנדלר/Wikimedia Commons (under public domain)

Olivier Sorgho

Olivier Sorgho is senior editor at Notes from Poland, covering politics, business and society. He previously worked for Reuters.