Israel bars entry to W Bank firemen who helped to extinguish fires

Ceremony to honour firefighters cancelled after Israel denies entry permits to Palestinians who helped battle blaze.

Israel has barred a group of Palestinian firefighters from attending a ceremony where they were to be honoured for their help in battling a deadly forest fire last week.

At least 10 Palestinians were invited to attend the event in northern Israel, where the four-day fire left 41 people dead and ravaged large swaths of forest.

But Ahmad Tibi, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament and one of the organisers of the ceremony, said the event was cancelled when three of the Palestinians were refused entry permits to Israel on Tuesday.

He said the military had turned the firefighters away on security grounds.

"It's a theatre of the absurd," he told The Associated Press news agency. "This is a regular day-to-day practice of the occupation, and it exposes its ugly face."

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