Egyptologist Zahi Hawass says new Grand Egyptian Museum 'open' to Israeli visitors in interview with Israeli TV

Controversial Egyptologist Zahi Hawass has given an interview to Israeli state media and said that the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) is "open to anyone" after being asked whether Israelis are welcome.

Hawass, who has previously served as Egypt's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, said that it "wasn’t a question for him" and "not something that should be asked" during an interview on the Israeli Kan channel, during a segment on the museum’s opening over the weekend.

The archaeologist told an Israeli reporter that the museum was "open to everyone, everywhere in the world" when asked if Israelis would be allowed to visit.

In the interview, he continued: "The opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum is the most important event in the entire world, because this is not just a museum, but a cultural, archaeological, tourist, and educational institution of the highest calibre. The museum was built on the outskirts of the pyramids, next to the Giza Pyramids area, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World."

He stressed his pride in the GEM’s opening, appearing to take credit for it, and saying that he started work on it "since 2002".

"Attending the museum's opening is a great joy for me," he added.

The Grand Egyptian Museum opened to the public on Saturday after being in the works for decades. The GEM boasts a collection of Egyptian artefacts from various periods of the country’s civilisation, including the complete King Tutankhamun collection.

The GEM is now the world’s largest archeological museum, housing around 100,000 artefacts.

Hawass’s interview with Israeli state TV, given less than a month after Israel paused its genocidal war has raised eyebrows. 69,000 Palestinians in Gaza were killed by Israel's war, according to the Gaza health ministry, with the true death toll believed to be much higher.

The controversial archaeologist has spoken unfavourably of Israel in the past. In 2010, he referred to Israel as "the Zionist enemy," cancelling the inauguration of a synagogue in Egypt in response to Israeli atrocities in the Palestinian territories.

Hawass has also recently given a car crash interview to US podcaster Joe Rogan, which resulted in a great deal of negative publicity in Egypt and around the world. Critics have accused him of stopping the work of other Egyptologists.

One user on X said: "The despicable Zahi Hawass does not represent Egyptian civilisation. Whoever normalises with Zionists is an enemy of Egypt and the Egyptians." 

Egypt established diplomatic relations with Israel in 1979, following the signing of the Camp David Accords, but this did not translate into cultural and social acceptance of Israel among the Egyptian public.

Most Egyptians continue to hold negative views of Israel, amid its continued occupation of Palestinian territory and the brutal wars it has waged in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East. Egyptian authorities however have previously suppressed anti-Israel protests.

Hawass, sometimes dubbed the Egyptian Indiana Jones, has been the subject of controversy in the past, partly because of his association with overthrown former president Hosni Mubarak, and for his brash behaviour.