Streeting Admitted ‘Israel Is Committing War Crimes Before Our Eyes’
Maybe don’t take £30k from the Israel lobby then?
by Joshua Carroll
10 February 2026
Wes Streeting admitted to disgraced former US ambassador Peter Mandelson last year that “Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes” and that medics had told him of “calculated brutality against women and children” in Palestine.
The private message contrasts with Streeting’s public position on the genocide in Gaza; he continued to accept donations from the pro-Israel lobby as recently as 2024 and has received a total of £30k worth of contributions from pro-Israel groups.
Streeting’s admission appears in a tranche of WhatsApp messages that he published voluntarily in a bid to demonstrate he was not close to Mandelson, who is under police investigation following allegations he leaked sensitive government information to child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
In July 2025, two months before the UK officially recognised Palestine as a state, Streeting messaged Mandelson asking for his views on the issue.
“Morally and politically, I think we need to join France,” the health secretary wrote, a reference to France’s announcement that it would recognise Palestinian statehood.
“Morally, because Israel is committing war crimes before our eyes,” he added. “Their government talks the language of ethnic cleansing and I have met with our own medics out there who describe the most chilling and distressing scenes of calculated brutality against women and children.”
But he made clear he has “never been a shrinking [violet] on Israel”, noting he had supported the lobby group Labour Friends of Israel “for over 20 years”.
Mandelson replied that Israel might use unilateral recognition to justify further annexation of the West Bank, “which the US would be powerless to stop or reverse”.
“Israel is doing it anyway,” Streeting said.
Mandelson also asked what recognising Palestine would achieve, to which Streeting said: “Nothing in practice, but the symbolism matters against the backdrop of what we’re seeing.”
For many opponents of the genocide, the message will confirm the view that the Labour government uses largely empty gestures in a bid to placate anger over its role in supplying weapons and diplomatic support to Israel.
Joshua Carroll is a writer and journalist.