Bucks MP’s Israel trip paid for by lobbying group after Hamas attack was ‘harrowing’

The MP for Mid Buckinghamshire has said he was ‘free to see with his own eyes’ the ‘harrowing’ aftermath of Hamas’ surprise attacks in Israel on October 7 last year.

Conservative Greg Smith was part of what he called a ‘fact-finding political delegation’ to Israel from January 3-7 this year, just months after the Palestinian militant group’s assault on the Jewish state, which killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.

His trip included flights, accommodation and hospitality worth £2,450 and was declared on the MP’s financial register of interests.

It was paid for by pro-Israel lobby group Conservative Friends of Israel, which has coordinated at least 180 visits to Israel by sitting Conservative MPs since 2015.

Smith made the trip while serving as MP for Buckingham, before being re-elected in July to the new Mid Bucks constituency, which spans the region from the edge of High Wycombe in the south to Steeple Claydon in the north.

The MP told the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) this week: “This trip was one of the most harrowing things I have ever done, bearing witness to the aftermath of the death and destruction brought about by Hamas’ evil attack on Israel that saw the biggest loss of Jewish life since the Holocaust.

“During the trip, I met with eyewitnesses to the October 7 attack, as well as physically seeing the destruction in areas attacked including the town of Sderot and the kibbutz, Kfar Aza.”

However, the High Wycombe Palestine Solidarity Campaign said Smith’s visit to Israel and recent donations from Israeli sources to British MPs, ‘particularly from Buckinghamshire’, have ‘raised serious questions about their impartiality’.

It told the LDRS: “Notably, Greg Smith’s fact-finding trip to Israel appears funded by entities linked to the occupation.”

The campaign added: “The Conservative Friends of Israel’s efforts are undercut by their association with a state implicated in grievous human rights abuses.

“This echoes the UK government’s historic support for apartheid, particularly in South Africa, highlighting a troubling pattern where lessons from the past remain unlearned.”

Following the Hamas insurgency into Israel from Gaza last year, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched a major military offensive in the Palestinian enclave, which remains ongoing and has included the widespread use of air strikes against what it claims are Hamas strongholds, but which have routinely killed civilians.

At least 42,344 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, while the conflict has now spread, with Israel launching a ground invasion of southern Lebanon after attacks by Hezbollah and threatening to retaliate to the missiles fired at it by Iran earlier this month.

Smith was asked if he was concerned about whether he had been shown Israeli propaganda during his trip to Israel, given that its government has been accused of genocide against the Palestinian people, and the CFI’s aim to ‘ensure that Israel’s case is fairly represented in Parliament’.

The MP said: “I was free to see with my own eyes the most harrowing and horrific things imaginable. The scale of murder, rape and sexual violence at the hands of Hamas was clear for all to see.

“I reject any notion that Israel is doing anything other than defending themselves from terrorism and further attack.”

The MP, who also visited Jerusalem, said the delegation he was on did not enter Gaza or the Palestinian Territories, but that he had previously visited Ramallah and met with the former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority.

During his trip, Smith said he watched a 47-minute film created from CCTV and footage from Hamas bodycams that ‘showed the full, horrific extent of what happened on that Saturday’.

The MP also visited academics investigating sexual violence and rape by Hamas and met with Israel’s President Herzog of, as well as journalists, representatives of the IDF and families of those taken hostage by Hamas.