Israel's Foreign Ministry and Huckabee criticise UK's Miliband over Gaza video

Israel's Foreign Ministry publicly criticised British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband after he posted a video describing accounts he had been given about conditions in the Gaza Strip, including claims that medicines were being blocked from entering. In the clip circulated by the ministry, Miliband said he had just come out of a meeting with people who had been in Gaza and were there on the ground, and that what he heard about what was unfolding was, in his word, horrific.

The ministry rejected the substance of those accounts. In a statement posted to its official account on X, the ministry said there are no restrictions whatsoever on the entry of medicines into Gaza, that no medicines are being blocked, that medical supplies have entered the Strip in large quantities since the ceasefire began, and that Gazans do leave the territory for medical treatment abroad. It framed the exchange as one of facts against stories.

What each side said

The Times of Israel reported that the Foreign Ministry denied both that Israel has blocked medicine from reaching Gaza and that Palestinians are prevented from travelling abroad for treatment, and said Miliband was well aware of that. The ministry also pointed out that the United Kingdom is itself a member of the International Gaza Support Center, the American-led coordination body that helps organise the delivery of medical aid into the Strip and which operates from Kiryat Gat, a city in southern Israel.

The figures cited by the ministry were specific. It said 22,500 tons of medical supplies had entered Gaza since the ceasefire began, and that 200 Gazans had left the Strip for medical treatment in the previous two weeks alone. Those numbers come from the Israeli government and have not been independently confirmed in the material available.

Mike Huckabee, the United States ambassador to Israel, joined the criticism. The Times of Israel quoted him accusing Miliband of antisemitism, in a post saying that hatred of Jews knows no boundaries. The Jerusalem Post also reported the Israeli and American criticism of the British foreign secretary over the medicine claims, under a headline drawing on the argument that facts matter less than stories.

Who Ed Miliband is

Ed Miliband is the United Kingdom's foreign secretary, the cabinet minister responsible for British foreign policy and diplomacy, a post equivalent to a foreign minister in most other systems. The Times of Israel published a photograph of him speaking at a press conference in Madrid alongside Spain's foreign minister, Jose Manuel Albares, and the Jerusalem Post used an image of him arriving for a cabinet meeting in London.

The wider friction between London and Jerusalem

The dispute over the video did not arise in isolation. The Times of Israel reported that Israel is considering expelling British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center, against a background of rising tension between the two governments over a contested settlement project in the West Bank. That would be a significant step, given that the centre exists specifically to coordinate humanitarian and medical deliveries into Gaza among participating states.

For readers outside Israel, the shape of the argument matters as much as the detail. Israel's position, as put by its Foreign Ministry, is not that aid delivery into Gaza is unproblematic but that there is no policy of blocking medicine, and that a country taking part in the coordination mechanism has access to the relevant data. Miliband's video, as circulated, did not present his own findings but recounted what people who had been in Gaza told him.

The role of the coordination centre

The International Gaza Support Center is described in the material as a United States led body based in Kiryat Gat that facilitates the movement of medical aid into Gaza. Britain is a participant. Israel's argument leans on that membership: the ministry's case is that London has a seat at the table where these deliveries are tracked.

What the reports do not say

The available reports do not include Miliband's full remarks, the setting of the meeting he referred to, or the identity of the people who gave him the accounts. There is no response from the British Foreign Office or from Miliband to the Israeli criticism in the material. The reports do not say whether any decision has been taken on removing British representatives from the coordination centre, nor who would make it. Huckabee's post is quoted only in part, and the Jerusalem Post's account is available in the material largely through its headline and images. Israel's figures on medical supplies and on patients leaving Gaza are the government's own, and the material contains no independent assessment of them, nor any data from humanitarian organisations working in the Strip.