In October and November 2023, at the beginning of Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza, London-based surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sitta operated in Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital, which was later exposed as the main Hamas headquarters in the Strip, in deeply dug tunnels and spaces. Abu-Sitta, who is the Rector of the University of Glasgow, used his 43 days in Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals to issue “eyewitness reports” of what he claimed was a “massacre unfolding” in Gaza.
Born in Kuwait in 1969, to “Palestinian” parents, Abu Sitta is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon who resides in East London with his wife and three sons. On Saturday, May 4, he was scheduled to speak at the French Senate about the medical situation in Gaza but was denied entry to France, based on a Schengen-Area-wide entry ban against him put in place by German authorities.
The Schengen Area encompasses 29 European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their mutual borders.
The French police reported that Abu-Sitta, who had been denied entry to Germany in April, faced a one-year visa ban imposed by German authorities, preventing him from entering any Schengen country. It remains uncertain whether Abu-Sitta was aware of this restriction before traveling to Paris.
German Police tweeted on April 12 that Abu-Sitta was “banned from political activity,” and “There’s concern that another speaker, who has previously expressed antisemitic or violence-supporting views, might be connected in the future. As a result, the assembly was adjourned, and a prohibition was also announced for Saturday and Sunday.”
“France is barring my entry. I was scheduled to address the French Senate today,” lamented Abu-Sitta, who had been invited by Green party lawmakers to participate in a conference at the Senate, focusing on Gaza. The conference’s theme was ‘France and its responsibility in the application of international law in Gaza.'”
Expressing frustration, Abu-Sitta tweeted, “In an act of sheer vindictiveness, the French authorities are denying me access to an earlier flight and insisting on sending me back to London on the last flight late tonight.”
“Colonial genocide is a formative component of European identity. Hence their eagerness to become complicit in silencing the witnesses and arming the war criminals,” he added. “Fortress Europe silencing the witnesses to the genocide while Israel kills them in prison.”
Who in Israel or abroad isn’t filled with the spirit of hope for a future of peace and cooperation between Arabs and Jews after reading Abu-Sitta’s vicious fabrications?
France stated that it was not aware of Abu-Sitta’s entry denial, but a spokesperson for the Élysée Palace informed Le Monde, “When it’s a Schengen refusal, the border police’s hands are tied.”
Abu-Sitta, who is a frequent contributor to the vehemently anti-Israel website Mondoweiss, described the Israeli-Arab conflict on a planet where no Arab country had ever attacked the fledgling Jewish State on May 15, 1948, and where the refugee camps of Gaza emerged out of thin air, without Egyptian violent control of the fleeing Arabs from the former British mandate:
In 1920, my grandfather Sheikh Hussain built a school with his own money in the small village where my family lived. There he set the foundations for a relationship that made education central to my family’s life. On May 15, 1948, Haganah forces ethnically cleansed that village and drove my family, who had lived on that land for generations, into a refugee camp in Khan Younis that now stands in ruins in the Gaza Strip.
