France expels Gaza student over anti-Semitic posts

A student from Gaza who had been studying in France on a scholarship left for Qatar on Sunday, ordered out over anti-Semitic comments found on her social media accounts, the foreign ministry said.

Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot "stressed the unacceptable nature of the comments made by Ms. Nour Attaalah, a Gazan student, before she entered French territory", said the ministry statement.

"Given their seriousness, Ms. Attaalah could not remain on French territory. She left France today to go to Qatar to continue her studies there," it added.

The student's lawyer, Ossama Dahmane, said Attaalah had chosen to "pursue her studies in another country in a spirit of appeasement and to guarantee her security", even if "she firmly denies the accusations made against her".

Freeze on all Gaza student evacuation plans

The young woman, who had received a student visa and a government scholarship as part of a programme for Gazan students, had been due to join Sciences Po Lille in the fall.

She arrived in France on July 11, according to a French diplomatic source.

But social media posts from the past two years calling for the killing of Jews, since deleted, were discovered.

That led to a judicial investigation for condoning terrorism, and an inquiry to determine why the posts had not been detected in advance.

AFP was unable to confirm the screen shots attributed to her by internet users and media outlets, but Sciences Po Lille said on Wednesday that her social media comments had been confirmed, without elaborating.

Dahmane, the lawyer, said the "alleged facts are largely based on shared tweets, taken out of context."

Barrot said on Friday that France was freezing all its student evacuation programmes from Gaza pending the outcome of the investigation into how the posts had been missed.

The foreign ministry would not say how many students have been affected, citing privacy reasons.

France has allowed in several hundred students from Gaza since the start of the war between Israel and the Hamas movement.

Agence France-Presse