The Times of Israel has published an article on 21 July claiming a 7yo Israeli girl was not allowed to participate in the rapid WCh in Tunisia.
Thanks to an informant who wants to remain anonymous it was found out that this information was plain wrong. The tournament there is a privately organized tournament. There was not a FIDE sanctioned event, let alone a World Chess Championship.
We can at the time not confirm if or if not a 7yo Israeli girl was denied entry to that private event, but even if so we would be unable to know the reasons for that (there could be safety reasons, worries for her, not wanting such a young girl to play far away from home, not necessarily an anti-Israeli motivation). However, I believe that a private organizer has the right to choose whom he wants to let participate, meaning even in the event that she was denied participation there would in my opinion be no obvious violation of FIDE guidelines.
So the Times of Israel article is WRONG!
https://www.timesofisrael.com/7-year-old-chess-champ-cant-compete-in-tunisia-tourney-because-shes-israeli/
Many thanks to the informant for the investigation!
Update, 6 August 2018: I was sent the following article:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/tunisia-backtracks-allows-israeli-child-to-compete-in-chess-tourney-1.6342006
The child now is allowed to participate. Again, this is no official FIDE event and we don't know the reasoning of the organizers to not let her play at first or why that decision was changed.
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