ISRAEL’S parliament has voted to bar boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigners from entering the country, national media has reported.

The Haaretz newspaper reported on Monday night that the Knesset had approved legislation banning anyone “who knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel that … has a reasonable possibility of leading to the imposition of a boycott.”

It also applies to those calling for boycotts of Israeli institutions in any “area under its control” — meaning illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Jewish Home party MP Bezalel Smotric hailed the vote, saying: “A healthy person who loves those who love him and hates those who hate him doesn’t turn the other cheek.”

But Meretz party MP Tamar Zandberg called the ban a “law that is against freedom of expression, that constitutes political censorship and is meant to silence people.

“It’’s ostensibly against the boycotters of Israel, but it doesn’t make a distinction between Israel and the settlements and it thus serves the BDS movement,” she said.

Yesterday, Israeli occupation forces continued arrest raids and road closures across the West Bank, the day after prominent Palestinian activist Basil al-Araj was shot dead in Ramallah.

A total of nine Palestinians were hauled away to Israeli detention as troops kicked in doors and ransacked homes during the pre-dawn swoops.

In the town of Taqou, east of Bethlehem, troops closed a road used by children to go to school.

In a raid on Monday night, occupation forces in Bethlehem seized two Hamas members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, Khalid Tafesh and Anwar Zaboun. Mr Tafesh was previously detained in 2012.

A joint report by several Palestinian detainee solidarity groups said Israel had arrested 498 Palestinians, including 19 women and 108 children, in the occupied territories last month alone.