Thirty minutes after landing at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport on 10 June, French freelance reporter Alice Froussard was detained, questioned and eventually expelled by Israeli authorities. She had planned to travel to the occupied West Bank on assignment for Radio France Internationale (RFI). Reporters Without Borders (RSF) expresses its full solidarity with this journalist, who has covered the West Bank for years, and condemns an extremely serious press freedom violation that reflects a broader effort to obstruct foreign media coverage of the West Bank.
After its media blockade on Gaza, is Israel now targeting the West Bank? The foreign reporter who was denied entry to Israel at Ben Gurion Airport on 10 June possessed all the documents required to enter the country and carry out her work in a region she has covered extensively for years.
A French freelance reporter who has been covering the West Bank for several French media outlets, Alice Froussard landed in Israel at 10 p.m. She was on her way to Ramallah on an official reporting assignment for RFI. RSF has learned that border control officers detained her at 10:30 p.m., interrogated her and, after more than ten hours in custody, put her on a flight back to France.
The official entry denial order, issued by Israel’s Border Control Administration and seen by RSF, cited “public security or public safety, or public order considerations” as well as “prevention of illegal immigration considerations.” Yet the journalist was carrying all required documentation, including a valid visa and an official contract with RFI.
“The above-mentioned individual will be removed from Israel pursuant to Section 10(A) of the Law as soon as possible and until that time will be held in a location designated for this purpose” the document states. It also specifies that she must obtain prior authorisation before any future visit to Israel.
“Alice Froussard’s expulsion from Israel is unjustifiable. An experienced correspondent who has been covering the West Bank for years, she’s one of the courageous foreign journalists covering the occupied Palestinian territories alongside her Palestinian colleagues despite the growing security risks they face. Preventing her from doing her job shows just how far the Israeli authorities are willing to go to deprive the global public of news coming out of Palestine. They’ve imposed a media blackout on Gaza for nearly three years and now they’re further restricting reporting from the West Bank. We stand in solidarity with Alice Froussard, condemn her expulsion, and call on the Israeli authorities to immediately lift this absurd ban, which violates all norms of international law.”
After expulsion, defamation
Israel’s Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism, Amichai Chikli, welcomed Alice Froussard’s expulsion on the social media platform X, adding the unfounded accusation that she “supports Hamas.” According to the Israeli news site i24News, the recommendation to expel her came from the ministry’s director-general. i24News said the authorities cited several statements she had allegedly made, including describing certain Israeli laws as “draconian,” asserting that Israel operates a dual judicial system amounting to “apartheid,” and saying the 7 October massacre should be considered “in context.”
RFI issued a statement condemning “the refusal of entry imposed on journalist Alice Froussard upon her arrival in Israel,” noting that it had occurred amid “growing difficulties faced by journalists covering developments in the region.”
Political retaliation?
The decision to bar Alice Froussard from entering Israel came one day after French foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced that Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich was banned from visiting France for “incitement to violence” and advocating for “annexation of the West Bank.”
A subsequent statement by Amichai Chikli provided further evidence of an Israeli failure to distinguish between the French state and a French freelance reporter. After the French consulate in Jerusalem expressed its outrage on 11 June about Alice Froussard’s expulsion, the minister responded by directly addressing President Emmanuel Macron and his foreign minister, criticising France’s sanctions against Israeli officials.
Growing pressure on international media
RSF had already warned in recent weeks of growing Israeli pressure on international media, citing the entry ban imposed on Spanish journalist Queralt Castillo, as well as the revocation of the visas of French journalist Khadija Toufik and Italian journalist Alessandro Stefanelli. Such measures have compounded the existing persecution of Palestinian journalists in the West Bank, who have for years been subjected to arrests, intimidation, violence and even murder. The victims include Shireen Abu Akleh, Al Jazeera’s veteran correspondent, who was killed by an Israeli sniper while reporting on 11 May 2022.
