Britain and Israel traded sharp criticisms this weekend after Israel blocked two British lawmakers from entering the country and sent them back to London.
The members of Parliament, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang, both of whom belong to the governing center-left Labour Party, said in a joint statement on Sunday that they had been “astounded” to be denied entry to Israel the previous day. They described their trip as “an M.P.s’ delegation” to the Israeli-occupied West Bank alongside charities “to visit humanitarian aid projects and communities.”“We are two, out of scores of M.P.s, who have spoken out in Parliament in recent months on the Israel-Palestine conflict and the importance of complying with international humanitarian law,” they said, adding that lawmakers “should feel free to speak truthfully in the House of Commons, without fear of being targeted.”
Israel rejected the lawmakers’ characterization of their plans.
The Israeli immigration authority said in a statement that it was “untrue” that they were members of a formal parliamentary delegation, adding that no Israeli official had “any knowledge of the arrival of the said delegation.”
The statement said that Israeli immigration officials had questioned the lawmakers and two aides and determined that they intended to “spread hate speech against Israel” and “document the security forces.”
David Lammy, the British foreign secretary, jumped to the lawmakers’ defense in a statement on Saturday, describing Israel’s treatment of “two British M.P.s on a parliamentary delegation” as “unacceptable, counterproductive and deeply concerning.”
Mr. Lammy said that he had “made clear to my counterparts in the Israeli government that this is no way to treat British parliamentarians.”
Ms. Yang and Ms. Mohamed both entered Britain’s Parliament for the first time in July, in the election that brought their party into government.
Ms. Mohamed is a lawyer. Ms. Yang is an economist and a former correspondent for The Financial Times.
The rejection they experienced also prompted political controversy in Britain, where the crisis in Gaza has long been tense.
The Labour government has in some respects been less supportive of Israel than its center-right Conservative predecessor: In September, Britain announced that it would suspend some arms exports to Israel. Mr. Lammy said at the time that there was a “clear risk” some of the weapons could be used in “a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
On Sunday, Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, defended Israel and appeared to blame the lawmakers in a television interview: “What I think is shocking is that we have M.P.s in Labour who other countries will not allow through,” she said.
Those comments were quickly denounced in turn. “It’s disgraceful you are cheerleading another country for detaining and deporting two British MPs,” Mr. Lammy wrote on X. “Do you say the same about Tory MPs banned from China?”
