Saudi Arabia, Kuwait announce official ban on entry for Israeli passport holders

Rating Justification

The iVerify Pakistan team investigated this content and determined that it is misleading.

To reach this conclusion, iVerify Pakistan conducted a keyword search to corroborate the alleged development.

Posts from users on multiple social media platforms since September 14, 2025, claimed that Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have officially banned the entry of Israeli passport holders. However, among the six Gulf states, only the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain currently allow entry to Israeli passport holders and Saudi Arabia and Kuwait maintain their longstanding policies of denying entry to Israeli citizens without any changes or modifications.

Arab and Muslim leaders called for a review of ties with Israel after emergency talks in Doha on September 15, 2025, following the Sept 9 deadly strike on Hamas members in the Qatari capital.

The Arab League and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation joint session, which brought together nearly 60 countries, sought to take firm action after Israel’s attack on Qatar-hosted Hamas officials as they discussed a Gaza ceasefire proposal.

The Abraham Accords, signed in 2020 under mediation by the United States, normalised relations between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain, with Morocco and Sudan joining later. The agreements paved the way for cooperation in trade, security, technology and tourism. Saudi Arabia, however, has not signed the accords and has repeatedly said that any move toward normalisation with Israel would depend on progress in resolving the Palestinian issue.

HOW IT STARTED

On Sept 14, an account on X shared a post with the following caption: “Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have officially banned all Israeli passport holders from entering their countries, warning of immediate arrest if found.”

The post gained 3.9 million views, 129,000 reactions and was reposted 23,000 times.

The same claim was shared by an account focusing on Iranian news on X and gained over 232,000 views and 14,000 reactions.

The same claim was shared by multiple other users on X as can be seen here, here, here, here, here and here, collectively gaining over 164,000 views.

Similar claims were shared by users on other social media platforms such as Facebook here, here and here with over 61,000 collective reactions, YouTube and Instagram.

None of the posts provided further contextual details, such as when and where the alleged development occurred or who or which institutions enacted the bans. The posts also did not provide links to any primary sources or government links or statements about the bans.

METHODOLOGY

A fact-check was initiated to determine the veracity of the claim due to its high virality and the strong public interest in matters related to Israel–Arab relations.

It is important to note that among the six Gulf states, only the UAE and Bahrain currently allow entry to Israeli passport holders, a development that followed their normalisation of ties with Israel under the Abraham Accords in 2020.

The remaining Gulf countries continue to impose restrictions, with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait maintaining their longstanding policies of denying entry to Israeli citizens.

To investigate whether there indeed were any changes in the existing rules and laws of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that already ban Israeli visitors, a keyword search conducted to corroborate the development for “Saudi Arabia”, “Kuwait”, “Israel” and “visa ban” for any official news article or announcement reported by credible international, Arab or Israeli media outlets yielded no results despite the viral posts claiming that it was an official decision.

Nor were any posts or announcements found on official government accounts of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Checking the website for Visit Saudi, the kingdom’s official digital gateway for tourism and visa applications, showed that Israel is not included in the list of nationalities when checking which visa to apply for based on your country.

The list moves on to Italy after the Isle of Man.

Checking independent visa information platform Sherpa showed that Israeli citizens require an embassy visa for Saudi Arabia and are not eligible for the regular e-visa/tourist visa system.

A keyword search for the current status of entry for Israeli passport holders into Saudi Arabia yielded a January 27, 2020, news report by Qatari news outlet Al Jazeera titled: “Saudi says Israeli passport holders cannot visit ‘for now’”.

As per the report, the Saudi foreign minister had said that Israeli citizens were not welcome to visit, after Israel gave its citizens the green light to do so for religious and business purposes.

Meanwhile, a keyword search on “Kuwait visa policy” and “Israel” yielded an archived link of Timatic, a leading provider of real-time information on travel document requirements for international air travel, that provided the following information for Israeli passport and visa holders with Kuwait as the destination: “Admission and transit is refused to holders of Israeli travel document(s), even if not leaving the aircraft and proceeding by the same flight.”

Furthermore, an August 14, 2025, report was also found on Kuwait’s English newspaper Arab Times with the following headline: “Tourist visas now open to citizens of 52 countries: Israelis still off Kuwait’s entry list”.

As per the report, Colonel Abdulaziz Al-Kandari, assistant director of electronic services in Kuwait’s interior ministry, said that there was no ban on the entry of any nationality into the country except for “Israeli nationals”.

He added that all nationalities were welcome to visit except for Israelis, in accordance with a decree that considered Kuwait to be in a “state of war” with the country.

The same was reported by UAE-based media outlet Gulf News.

Kuwaiti newspaper Times Kuwait reported on January 25, 2025, that the country had opened itself to visitors from all countries except Israel, to whom a ban still applied.

FACT-CHECK STATUS: MISLEADING

The claim that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait have officially recently banned Israeli passport holders from entering the countries is misleading.

The countries already have longstanding bans and restrictions on entry by Israeli travellers and passport holders and no changes have been made or any new official announcements made about the matter.

The Arab summit had called for the reevaluation of ties with Israel and the viral posts attempted to misguide the public in its wake by creating the impression that Saudi Arabia and Kuwait had now taken the new measures in the aftermath of the regional situation in the Middle East.

Evidence and References

Visit Saudi official website:
https://www.visitsaudi.com/en/plan-your-trip/visa-regulations

Sherpa website:
https://apply.joinsherpa.com/visa/saudi-arabia/israeli-citizens

January 27, 2020, Al Jazeera news report:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/1/27/saudi-says-israeli-passport-holders-cannot-visit-for-now

Timatic archived link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170311225215/https://www.timaticweb.com/cgi-bin/tim_website_client.cgi?SpecData=1&VISA=&page=visa&NA=IL&AR=00&PASSTYPES=PASS&DE=KW&user=KLMB2C&subuser=KLMB2C

August 14, 2025, Arab Times report:
https://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/uploads/images/2025/08/14/83229.pdf

August 15, 2025, Gulf News report:
https://gulfnews.com/world/gulf/kuwait/kuwait-announces-extensive-visa-reforms-1.500234369

January 25, 2025, Times Kuwait news report:
https://timeskuwait.com/kuwait-opens-visas-for-all-nationalities/