{"id":617716,"date":"2026-06-02T21:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-02T21:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/617716\/"},"modified":"2026-06-02T21:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-02T21:30:09","slug":"streeting-says-raising-concerns-over-gaza-in-government-like-hitting-up-against-a-brick-wall-wes-streeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/617716\/","title":{"rendered":"Streeting says raising concerns over Gaza in government like \u2018hitting up against a brick wall\u2019 | Wes Streeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wes Streeting has said he felt he was \u201chitting up against a brick wall\u201d when he tried to raise concerns about Gaza in government, after private messages from Peter Mandelson<\/a> were disclosed where he was accused of being \u201chysterical\u201d about the issue.<\/p>\n

Among a huge release of documents relating to Mandelson\u2019s appointment as ambassador to the US, WhatsApp messages showed Mandelson being highly critical of Streeting to Pat McFadden, another cabinet minister.<\/p>\n

In the messages, Mandelson discussed Streeting\u2019s lobbying of the government in July 2025, when he was health secretary, to act on Gaza<\/a>. Mandelson said he had received \u201ca wild long hysterical message from Wes about Israel. I pushed back. I can forward but reflects pretty badly on his maturity in my view.\u201d<\/p>\n

McFadden said several days later that Streeting had circulated videos and a note to cabinet on Gaza, understood to be a dossier from three doctors, including two surgeons at prominent London hospitals, all of whom described their experiences of working in Gaza under Israeli bombardment.<\/p>\n

Mandelson described Streeting\u2019s intervention as \u201cpathetic\u201d and added: \u201cI think Wes is experiencing an early mid-life crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement to the Guardian, Streeting said he was \u201chorrified by the war in Gaza\u201d. He added: \u201cIn 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\u2019t a war without witnesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always supported Israel\u2019s right to defend itself and Palestinians\u2019 right to a state of their own. I\u2019ve met survivors of October 7th and was the first shadow cabinet minister to visit Israel. I visited the West Bank a decade ago, I called for sanctions on Israeli settlements when I was a backbencher \u2013 this wasn\u2019t some emotional or one-sided reaction; it is what I and other ministers believe.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was proud to be part of the government that eventually recognised a Palestinian state, but we took far too long to get there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Streeting\u2019s 22-page dossier shown to fellow ministers, seen by the Guardian, contained multiple graphic images of children including babies with acute malnutrition and amputated limbs.<\/p>\n

In the report, one doctor described operating on up to a dozen children a day, with many screaming in pain because there were no available analgesics. They said that half the casualties coming in were children, and all said they had never seen such extensive trauma on young children in their years of working in war zones.<\/p>\n

Other messages between Mandelson and McFadden showed Mandelson describing Keir Starmer\u2019s Downing Street as \u201cbeleaguered and bereft\u201d, and on another occasion saying that the prime minister \u201clacks verve<\/a>, as does the cabinet as a whole\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a message to Mandelson, McFadden said of Labour<\/a> MPs about his then-role in the Cabinet Office: \u201cEvery meeting I have is: \u2018Who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others?\u2019 They\u2019re asking the wrong questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to the media on Tuesday morning, Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, said the messages were \u201cembarrassing\u201d but were in the public domain because of the government\u2019s commitment to comply with the humble address motion passed by MPs in February to release all relevant information about Mandelson\u2019s appointment.<\/p>\n

He told BBC Radio 4\u2019s Today programme: \u201c[McFadden\u2019s] view has always been about an emphasis not on the benefits side, but an emphasis on giving people opportunities, and that\u2019s what you\u2019ve seen over the last week,\u201d referring to the report by the former health secretary Alan Milburn<\/a> on tackling youth unemployment.<\/p>\n

Asked about the culture in the parliamentary party of demanding more spending on benefits, Thomas-Symonds said it was \u201cnot my experience, obviously Pat is talking there about meetings he\u2019s been in. It\u2019s not my experience.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wes Streeting has said he felt he was \u201chitting up against a brick wall\u201d when he tried to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-617716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}