Racial profiling – notwithstanding legal victories against the practice – remains the de facto law in Israeli airports. However, despite significant evidence to the contrary, the Israel Airports Authority (IAA) continues to deny that this tactic is in use.

NIF grantee Adalah has once again taken up the fight. The IAA, they argue, may not have the legal authority to strip search Arab passengers at the airport. In a letter to Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and IAA Director General Yaakov Ganot, they argue that no existing Israeli law permits the practice.

Adalah attorney Fady Khoury said: “In most cases, therefore, [the passenger’s] consent to a strip search as part of a security check or submitting to the demand to be escorted by security personnel through the airport is consent that is obtained under duress.” Adalah wants Israel to stop these practices and also to compensate Palestinian Israeli citizens who have suffered from them in the past.

“The Israel Airports Authority is denying the multiple accounts by individuals testifying to use of these practices – including stripping Arab passengers and escorting them to their planes – by its security personnel,” Khoury explained, “and it also chooses to ignore the central charge in our letter which holds that these practices lack all legal basis.”

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