Manus Carlisle during a previous visit to Bethlehem.
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Manus Carlisle met two other Irish men who were attempting to travel to the West Bank and also refused in the area he was held in while waiting for his exit flight.
AN IRISH EUROPEAN Parliament worker who was refused entry to Israel has said that he believes his nationality was a factor, as has another man who was refused on the same day.
Both had told Israeli airport security personnel that they intended to visit areas within the Palestinian territories within their stay.
Manus Carlisle (33) had taken three weeks off work to go and volunteer with an organisation that supports rural Palestinian communities in areas that have been impacted by settler violence.
He was planning to enter the country on the general border permit given to travellers at the airport, as Ireland is a visa-exempt country.
The County Clare man first went to the West Bank as far back as 2014, but fears now that this refusal will make it difficult to re-enter the country after his experience at Ben Gurion Airport.
“The Irish passport was definitely seen as a red flag and triggered a lot of questions,” he said.
Carlisle works for The Left political group in the European Parliament, whose members include MEPs that Israel has banned from travelling to the country.
He said that he and his partner Myrthe Bovendeaard underwent three rounds of questioning that were broken up by hours-long waits, and that the entire process of being questioned, being refused, and waiting to board an exit flight took 20 hours.
“The initial questioning lasted for 15 minutes, and then we waited for five hours for the next person to speak to us, so we knew that something had gone wrong. My partner and I were then taken to a private room and asked some quite tangential questions,” Carlisle said.
He said that this second conversation was “surprisingly chatty”.
“They were talking about how lots of young international people have been coming over with intentions of travelling to the West Bank for the Olive Harvest season, to ‘bring the fight to bad people,’ which we took to mean settlers, because they said that this should be left ‘to the authorities’.”
Carlisle added that he was asked questions about his views on the peace process in Northern Ireland, and what he would have done, “had I been an Israeli citizen on October 7th”.
The Irish man said at the end of the conversation he was told to have a nice holiday and to “have empathy” and “listen” when speaking with Israeli people, and that his file was going to be sent to security services for a further check.
“Three hours after that we had a short conversation with a security officer who said we were being denied entry on public security grounds and as part of efforts to prevent illegal immigration,” he said.
In the waiting area for an exit flight he met two other Irish people, who were travelling to volunteer with an aid organisation, who were also denied entry on the grounds of preventing illegal immigration.
Got deported by Israel today https://t.co/ABQcvjwgrI
— Manus Carlisle (@manus_carlisle) October 26, 2026
For Carlisle, the biggest drawback is that he now needs to be pre-approved for re-entry, which he feels means there is a high chance he will not be allowed back in the future.
“It makes me feel completely cut off from the network of friends in the West Bank that I have made on different trips over the years, but it’s a different case still for the thousands of Palestinians living abroad who cannot visit their family members or see their homeland,” he said.
He had brought a bottle of Tullamore Dew Whiskey to give to a publican who owns The Barrel in Bethlehem, because “he asks everyone who is visiting from Ireland to bring one”.
“I ended up having a commiseration toast with the other two Irish people I met on my way out who were refused,” he said.
One of the Irish men that Carlisle met in the waiting area told The Journal that it was not how he hoped his trip would go, but that he always knew that denial of entry “was a risk”.
Irish travel advice notes that immigration authorities can deny people entry to Israel who have publicly advocated for a boycott of Israel and Israeli settlements in the West Bank, or who belong to organisations that have done so.
Previously, Israeli authorities refused Irish MEP and member of The Left group Lynn Boylan entry, despite their travelling as part of an official European Parliament delegation.
Just two days ago, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel stated that it has made an appeal to the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority over what it described as an increase in foreign reporters also being refused entry.
Just five days ago Israeli authorities detained around 80 US, British and Israeli volunteers who were helping Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem.
Read more about the dangers facing Palestinian farmers this olive harvest season through The Journal’s recent on-the-ground reporting here.