The Population and Immigration Authority on Friday reportedly deported a citizen of a European Union country who has lived in Israel for 17 years, is married to an Israeli Jew and has three children, because she is an employee of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees that was recently banned in Israel.
According to a report in the Haaretz daily, the woman was stopped at Ben Gurion Airport after arriving in Israel with her family, and was separated from them at passport control when a customs officer pulled her aside for questioning.
Then, the report said, she was asked to give fingerprints and was questioned about her employment.
“I asked if it was necessary, since I had done nothing wrong, and he replied that he would force me to comply if I refused,” she said, according to the report.
The woman then told the customs officer that she works for UNRWA, and was planning to move with her family to Europe after this school year, following the government’s recent ban on the UN agency.
“I told him that I worked for UNRWA, and he asked me to explain what UNRWA does. When I asked for clarification, did he mean the agency’s mandate? He reacted sharply, showed impatience, and asked if I hadn’t been following the news and what had happened in Israel,” the woman told Haaretz.
ILLUSTRATIVE: Passengers arrive at Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv on April 9, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)
After a back-and-forth, the woman was reportedly asked to leave the room and was then informed that she was to be deported due to her employment with UNRWA.
According to the report, the customs officer wanted to hold her in custody for 24 hours before deporting her, but she was eventually allowed to leave after an earlier flight was found. She was then taken to the flight and made to leave the country without her family.
The official reason given for her deportation was reportedly for “considerations of public security or public peace.”
The woman’s lawyer, Yitzhak Yaari, reportedly filed an urgent request for appeal, arguing that “the appellant does not work for UNRWA from the territory of the State of Israel, and it may be noted that the appellant is a law-abiding woman, with a family and small children. Therefore, how will her entry endanger public safety?”
However, the request for appeal was swiftly rejected by a judge, and the woman was deported from the country.
Israelis protest against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) outside the organization’s offices in Jerusalem, March 13, 2024. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)
UNRWA, formally titled the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, was established in 1949 following the 1948 War of Independence with Arab armies that accompanied the creation of the modern State of Israel. It provides aid, health and education to millions of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and neighboring Arab countries — Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan.
Some 5.9 million people are registered as Palestinian refugees by UNRWA, because they are descended from Arabs displaced in the war surrounding Israel’s creation in 1948.
Activists protest against the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), outside its offices in Jerusalem, March 27, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)
An Israeli ban on the agency was passed by the Knesset in November with a large majority that included the support of opposition parties, amid a series of revelations about employees of the agency who were actively involved in terror groups in the Gaza Strip, participation of some of its staff in the October 7 Hamas invasion and slaughter, and repeated use of UNRWA infrastructure for terror activities.
Israel has also provided evidence that the agency’s schools incited hatred of Israel and glorification of attacks against Israelis.
The ban went into effect earlier this year, but The Times of Israel reported earlier this month that the agency is operating at near-normal capacity in East Jerusalem despite the ban.
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