Furious row among parties after British MPs detained in Israel and deported

Two Labour Party MPs have been denied entry to Israel and deported over accusations of planning to ‘spread anti-Israel hatred’.

Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed are on their way home to the UK just hours after being held at the Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv.

Israel’s immigration ministry said the pair were suspected of plans to ‘document the activities of security forces and spread anti-Israel hatred’ without citing any evidence.

Yang, MP for Earley and Woodley, and Mohamed, MP for Sheffield Central, said that they are ‘astounded’ by the decision of the Israeli authorities to not allow them into the country.

Foreign secretary David Lammy described the incident as ‘unacceptable, counterproductive and deeply concerning’ and said he has spoken to his counterpart in Israel about the matter.

Chief secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones told Sky News that the pair were held at the airport on arrival after flying in from Luton on Saturday.

‘They’re now on the way home to the United Kingdom,’ Jones added.

‘But the foreign secretary has spoken to his counterpart in the Israeli government overnight to say that clearly, it’s unacceptable for British members of parliament on a parliamentary delegation to be detained in that way.’

Yang and Mohamed have said they had made the trip to Israel with charity partners as part of an MPs’ delegation ‘to visit humanitarian aid projects and communities in the West Bank’.

The Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu) and Medical Aid for Palestinians (Map) said they had organised the delegation that included the pair.

The organisations said they had been organising such trips for ‘more than a decade’ and the group had ‘informed the UK consul general in Jerusalem of their visit’.

In a statement this morning, the pair said it is ‘vital’ that parliamentarians are able to ‘witness first-hand’ the situation on the ground in Palestine.

They said: ‘We’re astounded at the unprecedented step taken by the Israeli authorities to refuse British MPs entry on our trip to visit the occupied West Bank.

‘It is vital that parliamentarians are able to witness first-hand the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.’

The message, shared on Mohamed’s X page, said they have ‘spoken out in Parliament in recent months’ on the Israel-Palestine conflict, and ‘parliamentarians should feel free to speak truthfully in the House of Commons without fear of being targeted’.

Support for Yang and Mohamed did not pour from all political parties in the UK.

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch told Sky News she was ‘not surprised’ the pair were detained in Israel, stressing that every country should be able to control its borders, and that is what Israel is doing, as far as I understand’.

She later told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: ‘If you look at the reasons why the Israeli government has given for why they are not letting them in, they don’t believe that they’re going to comply with their laws.

‘MPs do not have diplomatic immunity. I believe that the people who represent us in Parliament should be people who should be able to go anywhere in the world and people not be worried about what they’re going to do when they go into those countries.’

Meanwhile, Lammy hit back, accusing Badenoch of ‘cheerleading another country for detaining and deporting two British MPs.

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