COP26: UK PM Johnson apologises to Israeli Minister Elharrar over wheelchair access issue

British PM Boris Johnson, on Tuesday, offered his apology to Israeli Minister of Infrastructures, Energy and Water Resources Karine Elharrar who was unable to attend the opening day of COP26 as the conference was not handicap accessible. Elharrar, who suffers from muscle dystrophy, was barred from entering the Glasgow venue of the climate summit as it lacked a ramp. However, the platform was installed later as Israeli PM threatened the organisers to cancel his appearance if the issue is not resolved.

Early on Tuesday, she drove her wheelchair along with Israeli PM Naftali Bennett to UN Climate Change Conference, according to a report by Times of Israel (TOI). “Tomorrow, it will be exactly the same,” Bennett promised to point at the blue coloured ramp. “This is very important,” he said to his cabinet member.

Later in the day, Johnson apologised to the Zionist lawmaker as he welcomed her to a UK-Israel summit conducted on the sidelines of COP26. She was accompanying Bennett, who had previously asserted that Elharrar would also participate in the bilateral meet. “We're so darn proud of Minister Elharrar,” Bennett told Johnson. “She’s just amazing.”

“I gather there was some confusion with the arrangements yesterday. I am very, very sorry about that," Johnson told Elharrar as reproted by TOI. 

Why was she denied entry?

Elharrar’s spokesperson Shaked Eliyahu said that even though the conference organisers were aware that the Israeli energy minister uses a wheelchair and required an accessible entrance, the lawmaker’s car was kept from approaching for at least two hours. After the waiting period, she was offered a ride on a shuttle that was not wheelchair accessible. Following the incident, Environment Secretary George Eustice told BBC radio on Tuesday, “We deeply regret that incident...What would normally happen in this situation is that Israel would have communicated that they had that particular need for their minister.”

“There was obviously something that went wrong in this instance and they weren’t aware of that and so they hadn’t made the right provisions at the particular entrance she was coming to,” he added. After the incident, even Elharrar wrote on Twitter that “it’s sad that the UN, which advances accessibility for people with disabilities, in 2021, doesn’t see to accessibility at its events.” 

(Image: AP)