Two British members of the Parliament who were refused the entry into Israel returned to London after trying to visit the West Bank during an investigation trip, they said on Sunday.
Both, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang of the British Labor Party, said that they were “surprised” by the refusal of the Israeli authorities to grant them entry into the country.
Mohamed and Yang traveled as part of a parliamentary delegation, but were arrested at the border on the grounds that they intended to provoke anti-Israeli activities, according to the Israeli Embassy in Great Britain.
“We are amazed at the unprecedented measure crossed by the Israeli authorities to refuse the entry of British deputies during our trip to visit the occupied West Bank,” Mohamed and Yang said in a joint statement. “It is essential that parliamentarians can see the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
The Ministry of the Interior said it had prohibited the two entry legislators because they declared during the interrogation that the aim of their visit was “to document the Israeli security forces and to spread hateful rhetoric against Israel”.
The Israeli Embassy in London said that the Interior Ministry had a duty to prevent entry to people who intended to cause damage to the state.
“These people accused Israel of false statements were actively involved in promoting sanctions against Israeli ministers and supported campaigns aimed at boycotting the state of Israel,” said the embassy.
In their Sunday declaration, Mohamed and Yang defended their comments, saying that he had spoken to the British Parliament of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the importance of complying with international law.
“Parliamentarians should feel free to speak honestly in the House of Commons, without fear of being targeted,” they said.
In November, Mohamed asked the British government if he would examine his relations with Israel in the light of the “atrocities taking place in Gaza, in the West Bank and Lebanon”.
Yang, on the other hand, had urged sanctions against representatives of the Israeli government in Parliament.
British Foreign Minister David Lammy said the owners of legislators Mohamed and Yang was no way to treat parliamentarians.
Israel has a history of refusal to entry to members of the European Parliament and the American Congress.
In February, a delegation from the EU Parliament abandoned its trip to Jerusalem and Ramallah after two legislators were prohibited from the country, when they arrived at the airport.
Rima Hassan, one of the prohibited legislators, had previously described Israel as a “terrorist” state and accused his soldiers of having “coldly executed Palestinian children”, while pleading for him to “leave Palestine”.
The Minister of Foreigners, Israel Katz, said in October the previous year that he would prohibit the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres from entering the country because he had not “unequivocally” an attack of missiles by Iran against Iran.
