TWO Labour MPs travelling to the occupied West Bank as part of a UK parliamentary delegation have said they were denied entry to Israel.
Peter Prinsley and Simon Opher said they were travelling as part of a visit organised by the Council for Arab-British Understanding to observe medical and humanitarian work carried out by various organisations, including Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP).
“It is deeply regrettable that 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,” they said in a joint statement.
A joint statement from Dr Peter Prinsley MP and Dr Simon Opher MP: pic.twitter.com/y0Q7xYQf2F
— Dr Peter Prinsley MP (@PeterPrinsley) September 16, 2025
The pair were travelling as part of a delegation which was also due to meet British diplomats in Jerusalem, as well as Palestinian and Israeli human rights organisations.
Foreign Office minister Hamish Falconer said the decision to deny entry to the two MPs was “unacceptable”.
In a statement on Twitter/X, 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.”
Both MPs have extensive backgrounds in healthcare.
Stroud MP Opher chairs an all-party parliamentary group on health and worked as a GP, while Prinsley, MP for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket, worked as an NHS surgeon.
Opher told the BBC the pair 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.
“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.
It comes after another two Labour MPs were detained and denied entry to the occupied West Bank by Israeli authorities in April.
Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang made the trip with charity partners as part of an MPs’ delegation “to visit humanitarian aid projects and communities in the West Bank”.
They said they were "astounded" by the decision and that it is “vital” that parliamentarians are able to “witness first-hand” the situation on the ground in Palestine.
The National has contacted the Israeli Embassy in London for comment.
