LONDON — Two Labour members of parliament were denied entry to Israel amid growing tensions between the United Kingdom and the Middle East state.
Peter Prinsley and Simon Opher were part of a parliamentary delegation to the occupied West Bank when they were stopped from entering Israel.
In a joint statement released Tuesday evening, the two MPs — who were both first elected last year — said: “The purpose of this visit, organized by the Council for Arab-British Understanding, was to enable Members of Parliament to witness the vital medical and humanitarian work of a range of organizations including Medical Aid for Palestinians.”
Opher and Prinsley said they were “both respected medical professionals” and traveling “as part of the delegation which was also due to meet British diplomats in Jerusalem in addition to Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations.”
The pair added it was “deeply regrettable that the Israeli authorities prevented them from seeing first-hand the grave challenges facing medical facilities in the region and from hearing the British government’s assessment of the situation on the ground.”
Two other Labour MPs, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang, were blocked from entering Israel in April after the nation’s population and immigration authority said they intended to “spread hate speech.”
Opher, who represents Stroud in southwest England, told the BBC they were rejected on “public order” grounds and “escorted to a bus” back to Jordan after being held in a passport office.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting tweeted Wednesday Israel’s actions were “shameful, but no longer surprising.”
Foreign Office Minister Hamish Falconer called treatment of the pair “unacceptable,” adding that he had “been clear with the Israeli authorities that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians.”
The denial of entry marks the continued deterioration of relations between the two nations. The U.K. is set to recognize a Palestinian state ahead of the United Nations General Assembly, something Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said rewarded “Hamas’s monstrous terrorism.”
The Israeli Embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.
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