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A small hotel in northern Italy has refused a reservation from an Israeli couple, claiming that Israelis are “responsible for genocide”, The Associated Press reported on Friday.
The couple booked a two-night stay at the Hotel Garni Ongaro in Selva di Cadore, a picturesque mountain village in the Dolomites, through Booking.com. However, a day before their planned trip, they received a message from the hotel stating: “Good morning. We inform you that the Israeli people as those responsible for genocide are not welcome customers in our structure.”
The manager encouraged the couple to cancel their booking, offering a “free cancellation.” Following the backlash, the manager has deactivated his Facebook account and has not commented further.
Jewish organizations have condemned the action, calling it an example of antisemitism.
“I feel infinite sadness for the ignorance shown by certain people,” said Dario Calimani, president of the Jewish Community of Venice, on Thursday. “When you don’t agree with what Israel does, you spread hatred against all Israelis.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced it is investigating the matter.
Booking.com has since removed the hotel from its listings, stating, “We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind and in the rare event that we are alerted to discriminatory behavior from a property, we investigate immediately and will remove the listing from our platform, just as we have done in this instance.”
Luca Zaia, governor of the Veneto region, labeled the incident “extremely serious,” adding, “I feel deeply disturbed and I’m shocked by what has happened. Veneto must guarantee its doors are open to all.”
The incident comes amid a sharp rise in antisemitism around the world since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.
The Antisemitism Observatory recently said Italy has seen a 300% surge in antisemitic incidents since the October 7 attack.
Before October 7, 2023, around 30 cases of antisemitism were recorded each week, said Stefano Gatti, a researcher at the observatory. However, following the attack the number of incidents increased to 80 or 90 per week, Gatti added.
Last month, on the day of the anniversary of the October 7 massacre, vandals defaced a mural in Milan that depicted Vlada Patapov, a survivor of the attack. Patapov became a symbol of Hamas’ brutality attack after images of her, wearing a red jacket and fleeing across the desert during the massacre at the Nova music festival, went viral.
Other previous incidents of antisemitism in Italy include a rabbi being stalked in Genoa by an individual wielding a screwdriver.
Another incident involved a restaurant owner telling diners that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was justified in wanting to kill all Jews, unaware that the diners themselves were Jewish.
(Israel National News' North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Israel National News articles, however, is Israeli time.)