Luton border police accused of ‘racial profiling’ after singling out Tel Aviv passengers with bag search

“We were among the first to be asked to queue up and more and more people were joining and we could see they were all from our flight. There were quite a lot of people with babies and people were getting quite tired and upset.

“People started to murmuring that it felt like racial profiling. One of the border police said it was to ‘keep our borders safe’ but people were saying we had just come from Tel Aviv, one of the most secure airports in the world – what did they think we were bringing in?”

Nicola Goldberg, 55, from Leeds was one of the last to get her case. “There were police at customs area and people from other planes, Lisbon, Warsaw were all let through but they said anyone from Tel Aviv had to have a routine check.

“By the time I got there, the scanner was broken and one woman was really kicking off about the size of the queue. The mad thing is, they didn’t even seem to really be searching our suitcases; they unzipped them, opened them, shut them and let us go.

“It just felt really upsetting. That we were picked on for being Jewish.”

The Home Office denied there had been any antisemitism or racial profiling. They said: “Border Force officers carry out searches based on intelligence, evidence and operational requirements. An individual’s ethnicity, religion or any other protected characteristics will never be the reason for a search.”

The search came just a few hours after passengers from Israel were stopped and searched in the Netherlands after the country prohibited the import of goods originating wholly or partly from the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Passengers were required to put their luggage through scanners and were asked about wine and dates.

The British government has announced sanctions on settlement goods but the change in law is not due to take place for at least six months.

In March, after an investigation of more than a year, Luton Airport apologised and pledged to start “enhanced training” following an incident which was described as “pure antisemitism”.

Israeli writer Alon Penzel had been travelling from Luton to Tel Aviv in November 2024 when he was stopped by security staff and “publicly abused and humiliated”.

Penzel had been wearing a jumper with the words “End Jew hatred” and carrying a placard promoting his book about October 7.

According to Penzel an officer said the October 7 attack was “only one incident since the illegal occupation began”. The officer then called other security staff who detained Penzel, took his passport and questioned him aggressively.

Two months ago, the Civil Aviation Authority, Britain’s aviation watchdog, announced it was investigating a series of disruptions to Israir flights at the airport including one incident in which a Tel Aviv-bound flight was cancelled after a towing vehicle collided with a jet.

Luton Airport has said: “Any suggestion that these were deliberate acts is entirely unfounded.”

Caroline Turner, director of UK Lawyers for Israel, said: “If passengers arriving from Tel Aviv were singled out for searches at Luton Airport on Sunday night, that is deeply concerning and requires an urgent explanation.

“This follows previous troubling incidents involving Jewish and Israeli passengers, including one which led to Luton to apologise and introduce enhanced staff training and another in which a visibly Jewish family felt they had been targeted during security checks by staff wearing pro-Palestine symbols.

“Luton should explain why these passengers were searched and reassure Jewish and Israeli travellers that they are not being subjected to different treatment because they have arrived from Israel.”