Israel has blocked Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert from entering the country and thereby accessing the Gaza Strip, but denied Monday it had imposed a lifelong ban on the outspoken medic. "He has been banned from entering Israel," foreign ministry spokesman Paul Hirschson told AFP, categorically denying reports Gilbert had been blocked from entering Gaza.
Access to the Gaza Strip, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2006, is possible only through the Erez crossing from Israel, or the Rafah terminal on the Egyptian border. But Rafah has been blocked by Cairo since a deadly suicide bombing in the northern Sinai on October 24, leaving Erez as the only point of entry to the Palestinian territory. News of the ban was first reported last week by Norwegian media which said Israel had barred Gilbert from Gaza for life. The outspoken trauma specialist - who has worked in the Palestinian territories for three decades - accused Israeli authorities of backtracking Monday, following calls from Norway to reconsider the ban.
"They have a little trouble explaining if I'm banned from Gaza or Israel," he told AFP, adding that he was allowed into Israel in October but denied entry to Gaza by Israeli soldiers and later informed that the ban was "infinite". "They keep changing explanations all the time, so I think they are fairly pressurised by the reaction from the Norwegian government and from the international outcry over denying entry to a medical doctor just because he's criticising Israel." Gilbert was one of two dozen European doctors who signed a letter published in leading medical journal The Lancet in July, several weeks into a deadly 50-day confrontation between Israel and Hamas militants in the tiny coastal strip.
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