France bans Ben-Gvir: Which other Israeli leaders have been penalised?

France has banned Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from entering its territory, citing his “unspeakable” behaviour of taunting Gaza flotilla activists who were detained by Israeli forces.

“As of today, Itamar Ben-Gvir is banned from entering French territory. This decision follows his unspeakable actions towards French and European citizens who were passengers on the Global Sumud Flotilla,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced in a post on X on Saturday.

“We cannot tolerate that French nationals can be threatened, intimidated or brutalised in this way – all the more so by a public official,” Barrot said, calling on the European Union to sanction Ben-Gvir.

Ben-Gvir had posted footage on a social media platform showing himself gloating as activists from the flotilla knelt on the floor, blindfolded, with their hands bound, at the port of Ashdod.

The organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla said in a Telegram statement on Friday that the freed activists reported at least 15 cases of sexual abuse while in Israeli detention.

Ben-Gvir is an open admirer of Baruch Goldstein, an Israeli who killed 29 Palestinians as they prayed in Hebron in 1994. He has been convicted multiple times by Israeli courts for “incitement to racism”.

Poland has also barred Ben-Gvir, announcing a five-year ban on Thursday. “In the democratic world we do not abuse and gloat over people in custody,” Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski posted.

The French ban comes weeks after the EU imposed sanctions on Israeli settlers and pro-settlement groups.

Ben-Gvir is among several Israeli leaders and organisations that have been temporarily or outright banned by countries in the West, or sanctioned under international law since Israel’s genocide in Gaza began in October 2023.

Here is a list of other Israeli figures and entities that have been barred, penalised or sanctioned in recent years:

Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant

The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants in November 2024 for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for their conduct in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

There are “reasonable grounds” to believe that Gallant and Netanyahu “intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity”, it said.

Effectively, the defendants are now internationally wanted suspects, and ICC member states are under a legal obligation to arrest them.

Days after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Gallant announced a “complete siege” on Gaza, saying “we are fighting against human animals”.

More than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza. Israeli officials acknowledged the data was broadly accurate in January, after casting doubt on its credibility for two years.

Genocide scholars from across the world have described Israeli military action in Gaza as a genocide.

Bezalel Smotrich

The far-right finance minister, together with Ben-Gvir, was banned from entering Slovenia last July.

The Slovenian government accused the pair of inciting “extreme violence and serious violations of the human rights of Palestinians” with “their genocidal statements”.

Last June, the United Kingdom, Norway, Australia, New Zealand and Canada imposed sanctions on the two Israeli ministers, accusing them of inciting violence against Palestinians.

Smotrich, who lives in an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, has supported the expansion of settlements and has called for the territory’s annexation.

Settlements are illegal under international law. In July 2024, the International Court of Justice ruled that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory was unlawful, a decision Israel has ignored.

Smotrich has previously called for “total annihilation” in Gaza, and said a Palestinian town in the West Bank should be “wiped out”.

Israeli settlers and settlement groups

Earlier this month, the EU agreed to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers and Hamas leaders.

The sanctions target three Israeli settlers and four settler organisations, but their identities have not been publicly disclosed.

“It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in a social media post following the agreement. “Extremisms and violence carry consequences.”

Excluding occupied East Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank in illegal settlements, among three million Palestinians.

In 2025, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements reached its highest level since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking data.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, the West Bank has been gripped by almost daily violence involving Israeli troops and settlers. More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, according to the UN. Nearly 40,000 people have been displaced due to settler violence and the Israeli crackdown.

In 2024, then-US President Joe Biden issued a flurry of sanctions against 30 Israeli settlers and groups, including the powerful settlement development organisation, Amana.

Under the terms of the sanctions, individuals and entities were blocked from accessing all US property, assets and financial systems.

However, months later, following President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the sanctions were lifted through an executive order in January 2025.

Will this have any impact?

According to academic Neve Gordon, while Ben-Gvir, through his “callous and cruel performances”, highlights certain issues, the problem is not “this or that minister, but the Israeli regime”. “If France is really interested in bringing about change, then it needs to go beyond a ban on people and introduce a ban on trade,” Gordon, a professor at Queen Mary University, told Al Jazeera.

However, he believes European views are undergoing a transformation.

“European opinion on Israel is shifting. European civil society has been watching a genocide unfold on their cell phones for almost three years now,” Gordon pointed out.

He added that there was “a wide gap … between the common sense of European civil society and the elites”, noting that elites are only now “making slow moves to reduce this gap”.

“It is sad, however, that the elites become uneasy only when Israel harasses and humiliates European citizens, and not because it tortures, disappears and kills Palestinians while destroying their lived environment,” Gordon said.