OTTAWA — A Liberal MP says she was shoved several times by Israeli border officials as her delegation was denied entry to the West Bank Tuesday.
Ontario MP Iqra Khalid said she was pushed after trying to check on a member of the delegation of about 30 people who was pulled aside for additional questioning after the group had been at the Allenby Crossing for several hours.
“I wanted to stay close by because there were three or four officers that were surrounding this young woman. And so I asked if I could be part of the conversation. They said no. So I took two steps back and I just was watching,” Khalid said in an interview from Amman, Jordan.
“An Israeli officer came up to me and he was yelling at my face and said, ‘Go away,’ and he pushed me. I took a step back into the wall and I said, ‘Don’t touch me, please.’ And he said, ‘I’ll touch you as much as I want,’ and he pushed me again. And at that point, another officer came and he pushed me further back.”
Khalid said another member of the delegation then came and pulled her back toward the rest of the group.
Khalid said the border officials would have known she was a parliamentarian because they had taken her special passport, which looks different from the standard Canadian document.
B.C. NDP MP Jenny Kwan and Quebec Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi, who are also part of the delegation, both told The Canadian Press they witnessed the shoving incident.
The delegation, sponsored by the group The Canadian-Muslim Vote, had planned to meet with displaced Palestinians in the West Bank, where the Israeli government recently approved the construction of 764 new homes in Jewish settlements.
Israel’s embassy in Canada says the group was denied entry because of CMV’s links to Islamic Relief Worldwide, which the Israeli government listed as a terrorist entity in 2014.
“The organizers are The Canadian-Muslim Vote, which receives the vast majority of its funding from Islamic Relief Canada, a subsidiary of Islamic Relief Worldwide. IRW was listed as a terror entity by the State of Israel,” the Israeli embassy statement said.
“The State of Israel will not allow the entry of organizations and individuals who are associated with designated terror entities.”
Israeli Ambassador to Canada Iddo Moed said in an interview with The Canadian Press that he’s only heard of the shoving incident in media reports, and “we really need to get to the bottom of this specific incident.”
He said there is a real concern that an organization “linked to a terrorist group” is trying to bring people to Israel and the West Bank.
“This is really relevant right now, because as we’ve seen in Sydney and we’ve seen in some other parts of the world, terrorist organizations are actually abusing our democratic societies and abusing the freedom; to get to attain their goals and we have to be very weary of that,” Moed said.
Khalid said she shared details of the incident with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand and the minister promised to follow up.
Anand issued a social media statement Tuesday afternoon saying that Global Affairs Canada is in contact with the private delegation and the government has “expressed Canada’s objections regarding the mistreatment of these Canadians while attempting to cross.”
As of around 3 p.m. Tuesday, Moed said he did not know if Anand had tried to reach him yet.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims is one of the organizations with members taking part in the CMV lead delegation.
NCCM’s CEO Stephen Brown said in an interview from Montreal that he doesn’t buy the reasoning for the delegation being denied entry to the West Bank because he said a similar delegation made the trip last year with no issues.
“So, the question is what has changed between last year when another delegation of five MPs, led by TCMV, and Islamic Relief Canada and the same partners went through no problem, versus this year and now all of a sudden they’re smeared as being terrorists,” Brown said.
House of Commons disclosures for current Treasury Board President Shafqat Ali, Ontario Liberal MP Salma Zahid, Alberta NDP MP Heather McPherson and then Ontario NDP MP Lindsey Mathyssen show they travelled to Jordan, the West Bank and Jerusalem between Jan. 13 and 19, 2024. This trip was sponsored by The Canadian-Muslim Vote.
Brown said he believes the delegation was not let in because the Israeli government does not want people to see what is happening in the West Bank.
Both Kwan and Khalid said that all of the delegates’ visas and electronic travel authorizations to enter the West Bank had been approved ahead of time. Kwan said the Canadian government had informed the Israeli government of the delegation’s travel plans and intentions.
Moed said that Israel is an open society and people are free to come visit whether they agree with the government or not. He added that just because someone has been granted a visa before their arrival it doesn’t guarantee their entry.
“They granted the visa, but they may be subject to questioning at the border, and this is exactly what transpired here,” Moed said.
“Nobody in this group was designated a terrorist, but we did want to clarify, once they arrived, what are their plans and intentions. And for that they need to co-operate, and they refused to co-operate.”
Kwan said that the MPs were not given a specific reason for being denied entry at the border, but the other delegates were given a form to sign indicating the reasons for their denial were security and public order concerns.
“The restriction of movement of Palestinians, civil society organizations, and now Canadian MPs cannot be acceptable,” Kwan said.
The delegation visited Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and met with Jordanian officials Monday to get a better sense of what they can do to help from the Canadian perspective, both Kwan and Khalid said.
Canada formally recognized Palestinian statehood in September but said some conditions must be met first, including elections in the new year that Hamas can’t contest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 16, 2025.
— With files from The Associated Press.
David Baxter, The Canadian Press
