Israel has held an American graduate student in detention at its international airport for the past week, accusing her of supporting a Palestinian-led boycott campaign against the Jewish state.
Lara Alqasem, a 22-year-old American citizen with Palestinian grandparents, landed at Ben-Gurion Airport last Tuesday with a valid student visa. But she was barred from entering the country and ordered deported, based on suspicions that she supports the boycott movement.
An Israeli court has ordered that she remain in custody while she appeals. The weeklong detention is the longest anyone has been held in a boycott-related case.
Israel enacted a law last year banning any foreigner who “knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel.”
An Israeli Cabinet minister said on Tuesday that Alqasem would be allowed in if she apologizes.
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