Mick Hartley

From the JC:

The Israeli brothers detained for two hours by Border Force officials at Manchester Airport were hailed as heroes after they saved 150 lives battling Hamas terrorists on October 7 in a six-hour gunfight, the JC can reveal. One of their friends was murdered and the other taken hostage….

Visiting the UK to raise money for survivors of the terror attacks, brothers Daniel and Neriyah were held after flying in from Brussels on Sunday night to speak at a post-Purim business lunch in Manchester the following day.

“They were asking us what we came to the UK to do and I started telling them that we went through the October 7 massacre and we’re here to share our story. When they heard that, they just flipped,” said Neriyah.

He said two border control officials started to “interrogate” them, asking if he served in the army and what they did. “He was absolutely trying to fail us, to find something that will mean we cannot go into the country,” he said.

Neriyah added: “I could tell on their faces that they didn't like us.”

Neriyah and Daniel gave the officials the details of the event they had flown in to attend, a luncheon hosted by a local Chabad and organised by the Jewish Business Network of Greater Manchester. 

One of the officials told them: “I don’t like what you came to do here,” Neriyah said.

He added that they were subjected to questioning for nearly two hours as they watched countless other travellers passing through border control in minutes.

A video taken by Daniel showed one of the officials saying to the brothers: “Just let us do the checks we need to do and keep quiet. Look at me. We’re the bosses, not you.”

Neriyah added: “In the end, after this they don’t have anything to blame on us. So they just gave us the passports and the cop says to me, ‘I want to make sure that you’re not going to do here what you do in Gaza’.

“When he said it to me I started freaking out and I didn’t feel safe, you know?”

Neriyah said he had heard reports of antisemitism in the UK but “didn’t know how big it was” until his encounter with border officials on Sunday.

“After what happened I don’t feel safe to come back to this country again,” he said. “This is my first time and my last time here.”…

The Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Region reported the incident yesterday and requested an “urgent investigation” by the UK Home Office. In a letter to Manchester Airport Group shared on social media, the Chief Executive of the council Marc Levy wrote that “the only reason for their detention and interrogation was because they are Israeli.”

Levy condemned the abuse, writing that the brothers “suffer from PTSD and had come to the UK to speak of their experiences as survivors of terrorism” only to be abused by a Border Official who “was motivated by antisemitic intent.”