{"id":484481,"date":"2026-06-05T12:09:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/484481\/"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:09:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:09:08","slug":"hardline-israeli-ministers-ben-gvir-and-smotrich-barred-from-travel-to-ireland-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/484481\/","title":{"rendered":"Hardline Israeli ministers Ben-Gvir and Smotrich barred from travel to Ireland \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irish officials have been instructed to block any effort by hardline Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich to travel to the Republic, a symbolic but significant sanction of the Israeli<\/a> government. <\/p>\n

Confirming the effective travel ban on Friday, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> said a direction had been given to prohibit the two Israeli politicians from travelling to the State. <\/p>\n

\u201cMinister for Justice Jim O\u2019Callaghan, [it] is my understanding, has instructed his officials to prohibit any travel into Ireland [for] both minister Ben-Gvir and minister Smotrich,\u201d Martin said. <\/p>\n

Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, ministers for national security and finance respectively, have been among the most outspoken advocates<\/a> for Israel\u2019s campaign in Gaza<\/a> and the West Bank<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Government had recently condemned Ben-Gvir for releasing a video of himself taunting activists<\/a> who had been on board a Gaza aid flotilla, after they were detained by Israeli forces. <\/p>\n

Speaking on Friday in Montenegro, Martin said the behaviour of the politicians \u201cjustifies\u201d them being subject to wider reaching sanctions at European Union level. <\/p>\n

The statements of the far-right Israeli ministers essentially \u201camount to a desire to see the elimination of Palestinians from Palestine\u201d, the Fianna F\u00e1il leader said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s again something that the international community needs to take on board and we will be pursuing that with others,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn my view, their behaviour justifies sanctions at EU level as well, and that\u2019s something that we will raise, whether we can get sufficient support across the European Union is a different matter,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

There has been a fresh attempt in Brussels to sanction Ben-Gvir, in the aftermath of the flotilla controversy, but it is still unclear whether such a move would secure the unanimous agreement of all 27 national governments.<\/p>\n

Previous efforts to sanction the two hardline ministers were blocked by Germany and the former Hungarian government, led by far-right populist Viktor Orb\u00e1n, a staunch defender of Israel. <\/p>\n

The recent change of government in Budapest has seen discussions among diplomats and officials resume about attempting to sanction Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. <\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s actions during and after its two-year war in Gaza, which reduced large parts of the Palestinian enclave to rubble and saw famine spread through the besieged population, were \u201cunacceptable,\u201d Martin said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re now hearing very poor, negative reports about the absence of really sufficient humanitarian and medical aid going in [to Gaza]. Almost what we\u2019re witnessing is a sort of permanent state of subjugation of a people and that\u2019s not acceptable,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The Government had asked that the EU\u2019s 27 leaders discuss relations with Israel and the situation in Palestine at a summit in Brussels later this month. <\/p>\n

European Council president Ant\u00f3nio Costa, who chairs the summits, has confirmed the contentious issue would be debated. <\/p>\n

Diplomats from the 27 governments have been debating whether their leaders could agree to EU-level sanctions on extremist Israeli ministers.<\/p>\n

Recent closed door discussions suggest Germany, always a firm defender of Israel, might be open to the bloc sanctioning Ben-Gvir, but not Smotrich, according to one source briefed on the talks. <\/p>\n

However, the Czech government is opposing EU sanctions on either men, which would prevent any restrictions being approved. <\/p>\n

Commenting on the debate about whether Ireland should field a team in an upcoming Nations League game against Israel, Martin said he did not want to see the Irish football team \u201cdisadvantaged\u201d. Ireland refusing to play the fixture would have \u201clittle impact\u201d on Israel, he said. <\/p>\n

The Taoiseach was speaking in Tivat, Montenegro, where he was attending a meeting bringing together EU leaders and their counterparts from the western Balkans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Irish officials have been instructed to block any effort by hardline Israeli ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5148,3409,61,60,3410,18573,1843,43,4268,1841,27129],"class_list":["post-484481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-european-union","tag-gaza-strip","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-jim-ocallaghan","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-palestine","tag-viktor-orban","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}