An Israeli Flag on the Floor in Strasbourg, and the Case Metsola Must Decide

One flag came off its stand. Another went down with it. In the few seconds it took Rima Hassan to cross an exhibition in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Monday evening, a protest against Israel became a disciplinary file against the lawmaker who made it — and by Tuesday afternoon the chamber was arguing not about the war in Gaza but about what the cameras had actually recorded.

An Israeli Flag on the Floor in Strasbourg, and the Case Metsola Must Decide

STRASBOURG, France — A French member of the European Parliament has acknowledged removing an Israeli flag from a memorial exhibition and denies damaging anything else, while the president of the institution says a member was filmed "apparently damaging" the display and that all appropriate steps are being taken. No penalty has been imposed. A decision will not come during this plenary session.

What Happened in the Room

The exhibition was held on Monday evening, 5 October, ahead of the third anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. It was hosted by the German MEP Hildegard Bentele, who chairs Parliament's delegation for relations with Israel, and displayed photographs from the attacks alongside speeches by Parliament's president, Roberta Metsola, and the former Israeli hostage Omri Miran.

During the event, Hassan — an MEP for the hard-left La France Insoumise who sits with the Left group — took the Israeli flag from its stand. The European Union flag, fixed to the same base, went down with it: the presidency's account has it knocked down, Hassan's has it falling by accident. Photographs of the two flags lying on the dark floor circulated within hours, published by the French centre-right MEP François-Xavier Bellamy and later carried by news outlets across Europe.

Metsola opened the following day's sitting by addressing it. "A member of this house was filmed apparently damaging an exhibition commemorating the victims of the terrorist attack in Israel on October 7th," she told lawmakers. The member, she said, had been seen "allegedly throwing the flag of Israel to the ground, dropped a flagpole and the European Union flag was knocked down. Both flags were left lying on the ground before the member left the scene."

Two Accounts, One Camera

The president did not name Hassan. She did not announce a sanction. What she announced was a process: "We take this extremely seriously, and all appropriate steps according to our procedures are being taken, including the right of the person concerned to be heard."

Minutes later Hassan answered her from the floor, describing the president's account as "factually false" and telling the chamber, "I did not touch the European flag."

Her office had already given its version to the French news agency AFP: as she was leaving, it said, she "removed the Israeli flag from its stand. The European Union flag, attached to the same base, then accidentally fell due to the loss of balance. Neither flag was trampled or damaged." The statement said the action was meant to denounce "the ongoing genocide being perpetrated by the Israeli government" but was "in no way aimed at the people this event sought to honour, nor at their memory." Hassan wrote to Metsola setting out that account, and asked her to release video that journalists had requested, arguing that a lack of transparency would feed "fake news".

In the chamber she put the case differently: "It is entirely possible — as we did with our group — to commemorate the victims of October 7 without associating ourselves with the genocidal Israeli state."

The Event It Interrupted

The commemoration marks three years since the Hamas-led assault in southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, and the Israeli offensive that followed, which Euronews reported in its anniversary coverage has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians.

The parliamentary event was arranged by the centre-right European People's Party, according to a Parliament spokesperson, who would not confirm whether it had been organised jointly with the Israeli embassy — a point in dispute. Hassan has described it as an "unofficial event" organised with Israel's diplomatic representation and the American Jewish Committee.

The exhibition of photographs from the attacks was curated around the victims; the Israeli artist Yaron Bob, who survived 7 October, was among those invited. The former Israeli hostage Omri Miran also spoke. Parliament's plenary session ran through Thursday, and Wednesday was the anniversary itself.

What Hassan Says She Was Protesting

In a thread on X, Hassan set out what she says she objected to. Necklaces displayed at the exhibition, she wrote, featured a map of Israel "encompassing Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territories", which she said disregarded the European Union's longstanding diplomatic position. The event, she wrote, was organised with Israel's diplomatic representation and the American Jewish Committee, "which has been called out for its promotion of colonization through trips by European deputies to the occupied territories".

She says the Israeli artist invited to the exhibition, Yaron Bob, denied the existence of Palestine and of Palestinians during an exchange. She quoted him: "Palestine does not exist. It is a chimera, like unicorns," and, "there are no Palestinian refugees, nor Palestinians".

Then the sentence that explained the flag. "As I was leaving, I removed the Israeli flag from its stand," she wrote. "My gesture is part of the denunciation of the ongoing genocide, of violations of international law, and of this incessant and unbearable double standard." She argued that a Russian flag would not be admitted to the Parliament's premises, while Israel — represented, she said, through its diplomatic mission at the event — continued to enjoy "total impunity". She added: "No flag was trampled, damaged, or thrown away."

The Artist in the Room

Bob, who survived the 7 October attacks, gave the Jewish News a different sequence. He said Hassan arrived with an assistant and did not introduce herself, then asked why an Israeli flag was there. "I said that I represent Israel regarding 7 October here," he told the outlet. "She started to yell that Israel does not exist, that Israel is an occupied state. I said that if she doesn't recognise Israel's existence, then I don't recognise Palestine's existence."

What happened next is the crux of the dispute. "Then Hassan took the Israeli flag and threw it on the floor, knocking the EU flag too," Bob said. "She just walked above them without lifting them."

Hassan's account has her leaving the flag on the floor as she walked out; her office denies she walked over either flag. No footage of the moment has been released publicly. The Parliament's own surveillance cameras recorded it.

What the Rules Actually Allow

Under Parliament's rules of procedure, penalties for serious breaches of conduct run from a reprimand, through the loss of the daily allowance, to temporary suspension from some parliamentary activities. The allowance is worth €350 a day, and a suspension of it can run for up to 60 days.

The procedure is the president's to run. Hassan will be required to give her account to Metsola, who decides. An official in the president's office told Euronews that the presidency is examining footage recorded by the Parliament's surveillance cameras to assess the incident and settle the penalty — and that the decision will not be taken during the current plenary session.

That last detail matters more than it sounds. The chamber empties on Thursday, and no penalty imposed this week would have been delivered in front of the members who spent the week demanding one. The file will be decided quietly, in writing, on a record that at present consists of a president's statement, a member's letter and a video nobody outside the institution has seen.

The Precedent in the Same Chamber

Parliament has done this before, and in the same room, over the same kind of memorial. On 29 January 2025 the Polish MEP Grzegorz Braun interrupted the minute of silence at the International Holocaust Remembrance Day solemn session. Metsola imposed a penalty under Rules 10 and 183: the forfeiture of his daily subsistence allowance for 30 days, and suspension from participation in all Parliament activities for 30 days on which Parliament meets in plenary, starting 10 March 2025, without prejudice to his right to vote.

The penalty also barred Braun from the next Holocaust Remembrance Day solemn session, in January 2026. In her announcement on 31 March 2025, Metsola cited the "recurrent nature of Mr Braun's disrespect of the standards of conduct". He did not lodge an internal appeal, and the penalty became final.

Braun's case did not end there. The Parliament waived his immunity in March 2026 over separate statements, and members voted again last month to lift it in a further matter. The precedent cuts both ways: it is a template for how a penalty of this kind is framed — and a demonstration that a punishment for conduct at a memorial does not settle the political argument behind it.

The Reaction, and the Silence

Bellamy, who first published the photograph, said Hassan had thrown both flags and called for her to be "sanctioned without delay". He described the act as "a form of complicity with those who seek, including within Europe, to reimport the antisemitic hatred that marked the darkest hours in the history of our continent." The Les Républicains MEP Céline Imart said witnesses had seen Hassan trampling the flags, and Bellamy's office told Le Figaro that surveillance footage and witness accounts would support the allegations.

Parliament's vice-president Pina Picierno, who helped organise the exhibition, accused Hassan of turning it into a "photo opportunity" and of choosing "five minutes of fame over the most basic decency". The centrist MEP Nathalie Loiseau wrote on X: "Rima Hassan tramples on an Israeli flag at the European Parliament. October 7 is in two days. LFI has hit rock bottom in indecency." The two co-chairs of the European Conservatives and Reformists group, Nicola Procaccini and Patryk Jaki, called for consequences.

Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, described the scenes as "shameful, outrageous, but sadly not surprising". Israel's ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka, told Euronews that the French people were "tired of her behaviour, of what she represents, of her attempt to import the Israeli conflict into France". The European Jewish Congress said it was "appalled" and called for disciplinary action if the allegations were confirmed. The Left group's spokespeople had not responded to questions from Brussels Signal at the time of its report.

The Legal Record She Brings With Her

Hassan, 34, is a French-Palestinian lawyer born in the Neirab refugee camp near Aleppo and raised in France. Elected in 2024, she has become one of the Parliament's most prominent advocates for Palestinian rights, and one of Israel's most outspoken critics in it — campaigning to suspend the EU-Israel Association Agreement and backing sanctions and boycott initiatives.

Israel refused her entry in February 2025, citing her support for a boycott campaign, and returned her from Ben Gurion Airport. She joined a Gaza-bound flotilla that Israeli forces intercepted in June 2025 and was detained and deported, and was deported again after taking part in the Sumud flotilla in October 2025.

In France she was arrested on 2 April 2026 on suspicion of glorifying terrorism over a post quoting Kozo Okamoto, a perpetrator of the 1972 Lod Airport attack, in which 24 people were killed. The post was deleted. An allegation of drug possession that surfaced during her custody — and was widely reported at the time — collapsed within days when prosecutors dropped that inquiry, her lawyer saying laboratory tests found only trace THC comparable to legal CBD products. Her lawyer Vincent Brengarth called the detention "completely illegal"; the LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon called it "political policing". Hassan describes it as "judicial and political harassment" and has said the only reason for the campaign against her is her stance on Palestine. According to Ynetnews, she has also said she condemned "Hamas war crimes" alongside her criticism of Israel.

What Comes Next

Nothing has been decided. The president has put the allegation on the record without naming the member; the member has answered from the floor and in writing; the video has been requested and not released; and the presidency will weigh a file that currently consists of three incompatible sentences. One says a member threw a flag to the ground. One says a member removed a flag and a second flag fell. One says a member walked over both.

Wednesday is the anniversary itself, and the Parliament spent Tuesday holding the argument a day early, on the floor, in front of the cameras. Whatever Metsola decides — a reprimand, a docked allowance, a short suspension, or nothing at all — will land on a chamber that has already made up its mind twice over. And it will land beside a precedent from the same room, applied to a member of the opposite politics, which few in this argument will be able to stop quoting.

By Jessica Ali, Staff Writer

This article was produced with AI-assisted research and editorial support. Sources: Euronews, Politico Europe, RFI, Agence France-Presse, Anadolu Agency, Jewish News, The Times of Israel, Ynetnews, The New Arab, Israel National News, ECR Group, European Jewish Press, Le Monde, Brussels Signal and the European Parliament's official record of 31 March 2025.