Netherlands Airport Apologizes After Security Worker Harassed, Humiliated Former Hamas Hostage

The main international airport in the Netherlands issued an apology on Monday after two Israeli women, including a former Hamas hostage, were allegedly harassed and publicly humiliated by a security worker.

“It is clear that the two passengers did not feel that they were treated appropriately. We regret and apologize for this,” Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport said in a statement. “We will make sure that such situations do not happen again in the future.”

The incident in question took place on Friday when the Israeli women, one of whom was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 and later freed from captivity in Gaza, were attempting to go through airport security for their El Al flight back to Israel. When handing over their Israeli passports for inspection, the airport security officer, reportedly of Pakistani origin and Muslim faith, approached them in an aggressive way.

The officer singled them out for being in the wrong security line, told them to move, and then threatened to fine them, Israeli news website Ynet reported. The worker then proceeded to remove them from the line and began to scream at them, reportedly making derogatory remarks about the fact that they are Israeli.

An escort for the women then called Israel’s embassy in the Netherlands, which in turn called El Al’s security team at the airport. The airline’s security team cleared the situation and assisted the Israeli women in getting to their flight gate.

The escort, who was not named, said in a statement to Israeli media it was “as if we had committed some terrible crime … I have never had such a humiliating experience. Everything was intentional — it was very clear that he saw the Israeli passport and it ignited him. We felt attacked and humiliated. He had evil in his eyes.”

The Israeli Embassy in the Netherlands said it will be filing a formal complaint over the incident.

“This is especially painful considering all the trauma the abductee has already suffered,” Modi Ephraim, the Israeli ambassador to the Netherlands, told Dutch media.

It was not clear from the airport’s apology whether disciplinary action was taken against the security worker.

According to reports, the two women were part of a delegation sent by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to speak to groups about the experience of hostages who were held in captivity by Hamas terrorists.

In common with other European countries, antisemitism has skyrocketed  in the Netherlands since the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, with an 800 percent increase in the number of antisemitic incidents recorded in the weeks immediately following the terrorist group’s atrocities.

Friday’s incident came just two weeks after a local Jewish civil rights group in Britain charged that two Israeli nationals who survived Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel were detained and subjected to discrimination while being processed at Manchester Airport in the United Kingdom.