Israel Holds 23-Member International Delegation, Including British MPs, for Hours at Jordan Crossing Before Barring West Bank Entry

A 23-member international delegation headed for the occupied West Bank was stopped by Israeli soldiers at the King Hussein Bridge crossing from Jordan on Monday and held for as long as nine hours before being turned away, according to members of the group.

The delegation included Labour MP Clive Lewis, SNP MP Lara Bird, Scottish Green MSP Kate Nevens, and former Labour MP Sam Tarry, along with participants from the United States, France, Spain, Switzerland and Ireland. They had planned to attend Progressive International's Second Ramallah Congress, a gathering of Palestinian academics, students and civil society groups opposing the occupation, and to meet Palestinian olive farmers during the harvest.

Lewis told the Guardian the group was separated and questioned by soldiers.

"We were detained, taken aside and then interrogated. I use the word interrogated because people were shouted at. We were asked why we were going in, what was happening, why our stories were one way or the other. The bottom line was it was a deeply unpleasant experience."

Bird described a similar ordeal on X, saying the group was held for eight hours and given no explanation for the refusal.

"I came to stand alongside Palestinians being attacked for harvesting olives on their own land," she wrote. "Instead, we were turned away, with no reason given." She added that Palestinians in the West Bank face escalating "blockades, demolitions and unthinkable violence" from the Israeli military and settlers, and that bearing witness to it had become more urgent, not less.

Layla Hazaineh, a political coordinator for Progressive International, said the delegation had intended to join the olive harvest and engage directly with Palestinian communities and institutions despite the risk. "Every refusal of entry will only strengthen this determination," she said.

The British government has not commented on the incident. Israel barred 11 other British MPs from entering the country last month in retaliation for UK sanctions on illegal settlements, though none of those MPs were part of Monday's delegation.

The blocked crossing came as Israeli forces maintained a lockdown in Hebron tied to a broader military operation that has included home raids, arrests, demolitions and displacement. Hebron mayor Yousef al-Jabari said 488 families, more than 3,100 people, had been forced to evacuate, including over a thousand children and dozens of elderly, pregnant and disabled residents, according to the city's Support and Relief Committee.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday he was "deeply alarmed" by settler expansion and violence in the West Bank, warning of "an increasingly coercive environment with the spectre of ethnic cleansing looming ever larger."

The Israeli military separately announced it would seal all land crossings into and out of the West Bank on Tuesday for the Israeli general election, and bar most Palestinian workers from entering Israel from Sunday through Monday.