British minister: UK Labour MPs barred from entering Israel are traveling back to London

Two British members of parliament who were refused entry to Israel and briefly detained for questioning are traveling back to London, a British minister says.

The Labour Party MPs, Abtisam Mohamed and Yuan Yang, were barred entry after questioning revealed that the purpose of their visit was “to document Israeli security forces and spread hateful rhetoric against Israel,” the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority had said in a statement.

“They are on their way home now,” Britain’s deputy finance minister Darren Jones tells BBC television.

“The way that my colleagues have been treated is unacceptable, as the foreign secretary has said,” Jones says, referring to an earlier statement by British Foreign Secretary David Lammy.

While being interrogated, the two MPs — who both call for boycotting Israel — claimed to arrive as part of an official delegation on behalf of the UK parliament, but the claim was found to be false as no Israeli entity had verified the arrival of such a delegation, the Interior Ministry’s Population and Immigration Authority said.

Interior Minister Moshe Arbel, therefore, decided to deny entry to all four individuals “in accordance with the law and ordered their removal from Israel,” according to the statement.