Passengers on an El Al flight from Ben-Gurion to Heathrow Airport in London on Monday were asked to undergo extra customs checks after a customs official discovered one of the passengers had an Israeli flag, according to UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).
According to a letter by UKLFI, there was nothing unusual before arriving at customs, when at around 10:30 p.m. the passengers reached the customs border and entered the "Nothing to Declare" channel.
Customs officers @HeathrowAirport selected all incoming passengers from El Al flight last night after seeing Israeli flag on suitcase & directed them to room on left where their bags were scanned. No other passengers selected for this treatment at the time. @UKLFI writing to… pic.twitter.com/tlfqwmhrwJ
— UK Lawyers For Israel (@UKLFI) June 11, 2024
The letter quotes one of the passengers' descriptions of the event: "We were walking through the exit when a customs official appeared and asked a man in front of me what he had on his suitcase. The man replied, an Israeli flag. Immediately, the customs official started shouting, ‘Everyone on the Israeli flight, go to the room on the left.’ One traveller said, "Why us? We are walking through with passengers coming off a flight from Doha."
The letter continued stating "The official didn’t reply. Another traveller said, ‘We are Jewish, why are you doing this to us?’ The official said, ‘I am a customs officer and I can do whatever I want."
According to the letter, everyone on the flight, including the children, was required to undergo additional customs checks.
UKFLI has called on Heathrow to investigate the incident.
Not the first incident
This is not the first incident in which passengers from Israel were singled out due to their nationality.
In March, two survivors of the Nova Music Festival were detained by UK Border Force Officers at Manchester Airport; they were told they were detained because "they had to make sure that you are not going to do what you are doing in Gaza over there."
Manchester Airport Group told the Jerusalem Post that although Border Force were not employees of the airport they would raise it with the home office.
Michael Starr contributed to this report.