British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta says French authorities denied him entry

4 May 2024, 17:09 | Updated: 5 May 2024, 07:26

A British-Palestinian plastic surgeon who has been operating on injured civilians in Gaza says he has been denied entry to France.

Dr Ghassan Abu Sitta said he was due to speak at the French Senate on Saturday.

He wrote on X: "I am at Charles De Gaule Airport. They are preventing me from entering France. They say the Germans put a one-year ban on my entry to Europe."

Germany - where he was due to speak at a pro-Palestinian conference - denied him entry last month.

Airport police there told him he was barred over the "safety of the people at the conference and public order", he said.

France and Germany are part of Europe's border-free Schengen zone.

After being held in Paris Dr Abu Sitta said on X that denying him entry was an "act of utter vindictiveness [by] the French authorities".

The French foreign ministry, interior ministry, local police and the Paris airport authority did not comment on what had happened or provide an explanation.

He will now be expelled, according to French senator Raymonde Poncet Monge, who invited him to speak.

"It's a disgrace," she posted on X.

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According to the senate press service, Dr Abu Sitta had been invited by France's left-wing Ecologists party to speak about the situation in Gaza.

Other medics, journalists and international legal experts were also asked to attend.

Dr Abu Sitta has recently been volunteering with Doctors Without Borders in Gaza. He has worked during multiple conflicts in the Palestinian territories, beginning in the late 1980s.

Other conflict zones he has operated in include Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

There have been almost daily tensions in France regarding the conflict in the Middle East since the Hamas attacks in Israel on 7 October.

On French campuses, police have cleared students holding demonstrations similar to those in the United States.

(c) Sky News 2024: British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta says French authorities denied him entry