OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), The Israeli occupation authorities prevented an Italian journalist from entering the occupying state, despite the fact that he had entered and exited about 15 times in recent years and had obtained a journalist card on every visit from the Government Press Office.
According to details reported by the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz on Wednesday, in July last year the digital visa of Alessandro Stefanelli was canceled without providing justification.
In January, when he tried to enter Israel via Jordan, he was detained for investigation for about five hours and his entry was not approved. It was written in the documents handed to him that the Israeli police decided that he covers events in Israel “in a biased manner, one sided”.
Stefanelli works as an independent journalist with international media outlets, including the French Libération, the American The Atlantic, and the Italian La Repubblica and La Stampa.
During his years of work in Israel, he was never arrested or investigated by the police. However, last July he was informed by email that his visa had been canceled and that he had to go to the Israeli embassy in Rome to renew it. He went to the embassy, but he said that he did not receive any explanation for the decision.
The details indicate that Stefanelli tried last month to enter Israel via Jordan and arrived at the King Hussein Bridge, known in Palestinian side as the Karama Bridge, where the Israel Population and Immigration Authority stopped and questioned him. After about five hours, he was informed that his entry was refused and he was returned to Jordan.
It was mentioned in the document handed to him that he was denied entry for covering events in a “biased manner against Israel”.
In the continuation of the document, information was conveyed from occupation police, according to which after October 7, 2023 he accused the State of Israel of practicing apartheid in the West Bank, and therefore it was recommended not to allow his entry.
It is worth noting that preventing Stefanelli from entering joins a wave of recent cases of entry refusals to Israel. Among the recorded cases are the occupation authorities preventing volunteer female doctors who sought to return to the Gaza Strip to help treat the wounded and the sick, United Nations employees who requested entry to Gaza, workers in humanitarian organizations, doctors who worked in the occupied West Bank, and others.
