A group of prominent figures, including Bilal Erdoğan, faces a ban on traveling to Israel as they campaigned for an end to the Netanyahu administration’s genocidal policies in Gaza.
Israeli media outlets reported on Wednesday that Amichai Chikli, minister of diaspora affairs and combating anti-Semitism, sought to bar Erdoğan and 27 other Turkish nationals after his deputy suggested the move. The ban has to be approved by the prime minister’s office.
Media reports quoted Avi Cohen Scali, the ministry’s director-general, saying that Erdoğan and others publicly worked and promoted boycotts against Israel. Earlier, Chikli had described Türkiye as an “enemy state.”
Chikli was also quoted by Israel’s Ynet News that Turkish officials likely had no plans to visit Israel any time soon but that Türkiye had “extensive activity through TIKA in East Jerusalem,” referring to the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency.
Other names Israel is seeking to ban include Ali Erbaş, former head of the Presidency of Religious Affairs and Bülent Yıldırım, chair of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (IHH), which spearheaded an aid flotilla for Gaza in 2010.
Türkiye is the most outspoken opponent of Israel’s genocide in Gaza that has claimed thousands of lives in the Palestinian enclave since 2023. Ankara cut off all commercial ties with Israel after the genocide began and has been involved in every diplomatic effort to stop attacks on Palestinians.
As a member of the Turkish Youth Foundation’s (TÜGVA) High Advisory Board, Bilal Erdoğan was instrumental in organizing a rally on New Year’s Day for Gaza. The rally in Istanbul drew more than 500,000 people, showing up with flags of Palestine and slogans calling for justice for Gaza.
“We will continue our struggle until Gaza, Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa are liberated,” Erdoğan said in that rally, branding Zionism as “Israeli Nazism.”
