A former senior UK minister has stated that attempts to raise the issue of Israeli atrocities in Gaza within Prime Minister Keir Starmer's government were akin to "hitting up against a brick wall." Wes Streeting, who resigned from his Cabinet position as health secretary last month, told The Guardian on Tuesday that when he and other colleagues advocated for strong action against Israel regarding the conflict, their concerns and motives were dismissed.
Starmer's Stance on Gaza Criticized
Starmer has faced considerable criticism within his party for not adopting a firmer stance on the war in Gaza, which has resulted in over 72,000 Palestinian deaths since October 2023. The divisions among senior Labour Party figures over this issue were further exposed this week when private messages from Peter Mandelson were published on Monday as part of the release of documents related to his appointment as the UK's ambassador to Washington in December 2024.
The messages include a communication Mandelson sent in July 2025 to senior Cabinet member Pat McFadden, in which Mandelson criticized Streeting's attempts to lobby the government on Gaza. In the message, Mandelson, who was dismissed from his Washington post in September last year after new details emerged about his association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, described receiving "a wild long hysterical message from Wes about Israel." He added, "I pushed back. I can forward but reflects pretty badly on his maturity in my view."
Doctors' Testimonies Dismissed
According to The Guardian, several days later, McFadden informed Mandelson that Streeting had shared testimonies from three doctors detailing their experiences working in Gaza with Cabinet members. The testimonies included graphic images of Palestinian children suffering from acute malnutrition and amputated limbs. The doctors reported that in all their years of working in war zones, they had never witnessed such extensive trauma among young people. One doctor had operated on up to a dozen children each day.
Mandelson dismissed Streeting's efforts as "pathetic" and suggested he was "experiencing an early mid-life crisis."
Streeting's Response
Streeting told The Guardian that he was "horrified by the war in Gaza." He elaborated: "In government, I did everything I could behind the scenes to get the government to act with the moral urgency the conflict demands. That included sharing the eyewitness testimony of doctors on the ground in Gaza, whose accounts needed to be heard at the highest levels of government to ensure that what was happening in Gaza wasn't a war without witnesses. I wasn't by any means the only Cabinet minister pushing for action but we often felt like we were hitting up against a brick wall. Our concerns and motives were dismissed."
Streeting also expressed pride in being part of the British government that officially recognized a Palestinian state in September last year, but lamented that "we took far too long to get there."
Further Criticism from Thornberry
Another senior Labour Party figure, Emily Thornberry, who chairs the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, also criticized the government's handling of the Gaza conflict this week. Speaking at a conference on Monday, Thornberry stated that the UK had let down the Palestinian people and that her government had lacked ambition in its efforts to address the crisis.
