Mike Huckabee accused Labour of "Jew hate" after Ed Miliband said medicines on their way to Gaza were being blocked. The US ambassador to Israel posted the attack on X after Miliband described what he said he had been told by people working inside Gaza.
Miliband said, "Frankly, it was horrific, what is unfolding," in a video posted on social media. He added: "The stories that people were telling me of medicines being blocked [and] children dying while waiting for vital life-saving treatment."
Ed Miliband and Gaza
The row came days after Miliband said the UK would "reset" its policy on Israel. He also said the government needed to "act more decisively" to alleviate conditions in Gaza, linking the medicines dispute to a wider change in British policy.
Tom Tugendhat warned on Saturday that damaging diplomatic relations with Israel could hurt UK security, saying Israel is a major intelligence ally. That puts the government’s new line on Israel under pressure from both sides: stronger action on Gaza on one side, and warnings about the security cost on the other.
Israel’s foreign ministry
Israel’s foreign ministry denied there are restrictions on the entry of medicines into Gaza and accused Miliband of promoting "stories". That denial directly clashes with Miliband’s account, which is the dispute at the centre of the exchange.
The issue did not begin with this row. In January, Physicians for Human Rights and the Global Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School set out restrictions on food and medical supplies, and The Telegraph highlighted cases in which chemotherapy drugs had run out mid-treatment. Tom Fletcher said in June that greater quantities of aid were entering Gaza but remained insufficient, while citing restrictions affecting some items including prosthetic limbs.
UK policy on Israel
The dispute comes as the UK was expected to consider plans to sanction Israel over illegal settlements in the West Bank. Miliband’s accusation from Huckabee turned a policy argument into a direct diplomatic clash, with the accusation now aimed at the Labour government itself.
For the government, the immediate test is whether it keeps pressing over Gaza while answering Israel’s denial on medicines. Huckabee’s post has made the next step less about language and more about evidence: what Miliband was told inside Gaza, and whether the government can substantiate its charge that access to treatment is being blocked.
