Two British lawmakers from the ruling Labour Party were reportedly denied entry to the West Bank by Israeli authorities as they participated in a parliamentary delegation to review medical services in the territory.
MPs Peter Prinsley and Simon Opher arrived at a border crossing from Jordan on Monday but were told they could go no further and were sent back, they said.
Britain’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday complained that the ban was “no way to treat British parliamentarians.” The country’s health secretary, meanwhile, said their treatment was “shameful” but not surprising.
A joint statement on Tuesday put out by the two MPs said, “It is 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.”
After arriving at the border, the pair were held in a passport office and then handed a “legal form insisting that we leave the country immediately,” Opher told the BBC. They were then put on a bus back to Jordan.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli Embassy in London or the Foreign Ministry.
Opher said that they were denied entry on grounds of “public order” issues. Efforts by the UK’s Foreign Office to secure their entry were turned down, he said.
“It’s very disappointing. We are both doctors and we were really just going to look at healthcare facilities in the West Bank to see if there was anything we could do to support them,” Opher told the BBC.
“We weren’t in any way trying to undermine the Israelis, just trying to see what we could do in the West Bank,” where the lawmakers had been told access to health care was becoming more difficult, he said.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting posted on X on Wednesday: “Having been on a number of delegations to Israel and Palestine… I find the treatment of two highly respected clinicians and Members of Parliament by the Israeli government shameful, but no longer surprising.”
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Middle East Hamish Falconer posted, “Unacceptable that two more British MPs have been denied entry to the Occupied Palestinian Territories by Israel.”
“I have been clear with the Israeli authorities that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians,” he added.
Prinsley and Opher were participating in a three-day parliamentary delegation to see medical and humanitarian work in the West Bank, organized by the Council for Arab-British Understanding.
In addition to touring medical facilities in the West Bank, they were scheduled to meet British diplomats in Jerusalem and Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations.
“Denying entry to British MPs shows how far Israel will go to cover up what is happening in the West Bank,” the organizing group said in a statement.
Earlier this year, Israel denied two other British lawmakers entry to the country as they were attempting to visit the West Bank on a fact-finding trip.
The two, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang from the Labour Party, were traveling as part of a parliamentary delegation, but were stopped at Ben Gurion Airport on the grounds that they intended to provoke anti-Israel activities, according to the Israeli embassy in London.
Israel has a history of refusing entry to members of the European Parliament and US Congress.
In February, an EU Parliament delegation scrapped its trip to Jerusalem and Ramallah after two lawmakers were barred from the country upon arriving at the airport.
Rima Hassan, one of the barred lawmakers, had previously called Israel a “terrorist” state and accused its military of having “coldly executed Palestinian children,” while advocating for it to “leave Palestine.”
Then-foreign minister Israel Katz said last October that he would bar UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres from entering the country because he had not “unequivocally” condemned a missile attack by Iran on Israel.