UK to sanction Israeli settlement goods in West Bank — SkimNews
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- Pat McFadden indicated Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband would announce measures "specifically targeted at the expansion of these settlements, which are illegal under international law" to preserve the possibility of a Palestinian state alongside Israel
- Mike Huckabee called the decision "irrational" and "discrimination against the Jewish people," while Israeli President Isaac Herzog said it would "fall on the wrong side of history" and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demanded Britain's ambassador be expelled
- UK trade with the Occupied Palestinian Territories totaled only £38 million (US$51 million) in 2025, suggesting the measures are largely symbolic and that distinguishing settlement goods from other Israeli products could prove difficult
- Ed Miliband, son of Jewish refugees to Britain, had vowed a "comprehensive" reset of UK policy toward Israel, calling Israel's E1 development plan for more than 1,200 homes "the crossing of a red line" that "risks making a Palestinian state unviable"
- The move follows weeks of escalating settler attacks on Palestinian villages; more than 500,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements among roughly 3 million Palestinians, and at least 1,105 Palestinians have been killed in the territory by Israeli forces or settlers since the Gaza war began, per Palestinian health ministry data cited by AFP
- Keir Starmer's previous government had already sanctioned six entities and one person for settler violence and in September 2024 formally recognized a Palestinian state, while Ireland's parliament approved a settlement-import ban in July
Why it matters: With bilateral UK-OPT trade at just £38 million annually, the economic impact is negligible—but the move sharpens a Western European alignment against settlement expansion, joining Ireland's July import ban. Burnham's new government is drawing a formal line between settlement goods and Israeli products, a distinction Netanyahu has vowed to render moot by accelerating settler immigration.
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