Team Israel gymnasts speak out after being barred from World Championships by Indonesian government

sraeli national gymnastics team athletes Lihie Raz and Eyal Indig spoke about their experience being forced out of the 2025 World Gymnastics Championships after the Indonesian government denied their team visas to enter the country.

EXCLUSIVE: Israeli national team gymnasts Lihie Raz and Eyal Indig found out all their work training for world championships would go to waste just days after their country's historic peace deal to end the war in Gaza. 

They had just experienced the joy of seeing the last remaining live hostages returned home. 

"We started off the week with one of the happiest moments of the last two years, with seeing the live hostages coming back home, finally being able to half-breathe it out knowing their back home with us," Indig told Fox News Digital. 

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Then came a shocking news report.

"It seemed like, out of nowhere," said Raz, a Paris Olympian for Israel. 

Lihie Raz from Team Israel trains on the vault during a Gymnastics training session ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympics Games on July 25, 2024, in Paris, France. (Tom Weller/VOIGT/GettyImages)

They first learned from a news article that the Indonesian government was blocking their visas to enter the country for the 2025 World Artistic Gymnastics championships in Jakarta. 

Raz and Indig allege they were told their visas were being denied due to safety concerns by the Indonesian government. 

"The formal reason given by the Indonesian government was that us participating would endanger us, and the other national delegations," Indig said. 

But Indig claims the team's own security team had given them clearance to enter the city, after an inspection beforehand. 

Indig cited decades-long security measures