Dutch passengers say no blanket luggage-check policy in place after settlements ban; airport poster warns of sanctions

By Nava Freiberg

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28 September 2026, 2:12 pm

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Nava Freiberg is The Times of Israel's deputy diplomatic correspondent.

Illustrative: Passengers look at monitors displaying delayed and canceled flights at Schiphol International Airport near Amsterdam on November 4, 2013, after strong winds grounded and diverted aircraft. (Tom Gandolfini/AFP)

Passengers on an El Al flight subjected to customs checks at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport last Wednesday tell The Times of Israel that the inspections were not a blanket search of all travelers arriving from Israel for products from West Bank settlements, after reports of the incident made waves in Israeli media and prompted a Foreign Ministry warning on the matter.

The most widely cited account of the inspections appeared in an opinion piece in the right-leaning Dutch outlet NieuwRechts, and was referenced by US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee in criticizing the Netherlands’ new ban on goods originating in Israeli settlements, which came into effect last Tuesday.

But the original account – which claimed all passengers arriving from Tel Aviv were subject to inspections – is inconsistent with the testimony of two other passengers and does not appear to reflect a new blanket checking policy tied to the ban.

Max Worms, a Dutch passenger from Oosterhout who was among those checked, tells The Times of Israel that customs officers called a group of about 15 passengers arriving from Tel Aviv to undergo screening after baggage claim, though he could not say how many others, if any, were subsequently inspected.

He says his luggage passed through an X-ray machine and was not opened, that nothing was confiscated, that officials never mentioned settlement products, and that the inspection lasted around fifteen minutes total. He described the check as unusual, but not obviously related to the ban, though he says it was conducted in an “intimidating” manner.

Margriet, a Dutch citizen who has lived and worked in Israel for a decade and was on the same September 23 flight, says she was not stopped at all, despite arriving from Tel Aviv. “There was not any check at all… it was like always. It was not different,” she says, adding that other passengers arriving from Tel Aviv in recent days were not inspected either.

She says a friend of hers working in Dutch border control told her that officers had not been instructed to conduct additional checks on Israeli travelers following the ban, but rather, if customs chooses to inspect luggage and encounters goods covered by the new restrictions, they must enforce it by confiscating the product and issuing the relevant fine.

Schiphol has meanwhile erected signs warning travelers that the new rules apply to goods in personal luggage, according to a photograph taken by Margriet at the airport.

“I was in shock” upon seeing the sign, she says. “It was like, okay, this is our new welcome now.”