The foreign ministry in Jerusalem has protested against a decision by Egypt to bar two Israeli women from entering the country to take part in a conference on breast cancer.

The women—one a family therapist with expertise in serious illness and bereavement and the other a physician who has survived breast cancer—had planned to travel to Egypt on US and Canadian passports to minimise red tape. However, just before their planned departure they were told by the organisation running the conference, Susan G Komen for the Cure, that Egypt’s health minister …