Health Secretary Wes Streeting has criticised Israel’s “shameful but not surprising” actions after two medically trained MPs were denied entry into the occupied West Bank.
Labour MPs Peter Prinsley and Simon Opher, who are both doctors, were travelling in a parliamentary delegation to see medical and humanitarian work being carried out by organisations such as Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
They were also due to meet British diplomats in Jerusalem, as well as Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations, in a visit organised by the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU).
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However, in a joint statement on Tuesday night, the pair said Israeli authorities had “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”, calling this “deeply regrettable”.
Mr Streeting wrote on social media: “Having been on a number of delegations to Israel and Palestine, including with @MedicalAidPal @Caabu, I find the treatment of two highly respected clinicians and Members of Parliament by the Israeli government shameful, but no longer surprising.”
Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer said the decision to deny entry to the two MPs was “unacceptable”.
He said: “I have remained in contact with both colleagues throughout and I have been clear with the Israeli authorities that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians.”
Chris Doyle, the director of CAABU, said that “visiting the occupied Palestinian territory and seeing humanitarian and medical projects should not be subject to an Israeli veto”.
The Israeli embassy in London has been contacted for comment.
Labour MP Dr Simon Opher. Pic: Parliament
Dr Prinsley, the MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, and Dr Opher, the MP for Stroud, were both elected in 2024 and have extensive backgrounds in healthcare.
Dr Prinsley has been an NHS surgeon for 30 years and retired recently to focus on his work in parliament, while Dr Opher chairs an all-party parliamentary group on health and works as a GP.
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Dr Opher told the BBC he and his colleague were held in a passport office and given a “legal form insisting that we leave the country” before being “escorted to a bus” back to Jordan.
“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,” he said.
Labour MP Dr Peter Prinsely. Pic: Parliament
“We weren’t in any way trying to undermine the Israelis, just trying to see what we could do in the West Bank” where, he said, they had been told healthcare was getting increasingly difficult.
He said he was not being admitted under “public order” grounds.
In April, two other Labour MPs, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang, were denied entry to Israel on another visit organised by CAABU and MAP.
It sparked a political row at the time as Israel’s UK embassy says they were denied entry because they had “accused Israel of false claims” and were “actively involved in promoting sanctions against Israeli ministers”.
Then foreign secretary David Lammy called the move “unaccaptable”, while the two MPs said parliamentarians “should feel free to speak truthfully in the House of Commons, without fear of being targeted”.
