Israel is closing Britain’s consulate in East Jerusalem in response to plans by the UK, France and Canada to block imports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, Reuters reported.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Britain would also be excluded from a US-led coordination mission for Gaza, and that several British officials, including former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, along with other UK nationals, would be barred from entering Israel. Saar said the British move amounted to unwarranted interference in a sovereign state’s affairs and its electoral process, and rejected Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s comments accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as false. He said he had coordinated Israel’s response with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, accusing Britain of interfering in Israel’s elections, due in late October. The consulate being closed is accredited to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
Trade measures and international backing
The trade restrictions announced by Britain, France and Canada on Tuesday extend a series of measures targeting Israel’s settlement policy and reflect its deepening diplomatic isolation among longstanding allies. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said in a joint statement that the move marked “a further turning point in our approach to protecting the two-state solution,” and that they intended to raise the issue at the UN General Assembly later in September.
Separately, the foreign ministers of nine other countries, among them Denmark, Norway, Poland, Spain and Sweden, issued a statement reaffirming their support for a negotiated two-state settlement between Israel and a future Palestinian state.
Miliband said Britain could no longer merely voice concern over the situation and needed to act against settlement expansion, adding that the UK believes ethnic cleansing of Palestinians is taking place in parts of the West Bank. He said new legislation would take six to nine months to come into force, but that sanctions against a number of extremist settlers would take effect immediately. Citing the threat Israel faces from Iran, Miliband said Britain would also sanction the Hezbollah-linked financial institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan and reimpose economic sanctions on Iran in line with the EU and the United States.
Canada’s Foreign Minister Anita Anand wrote on social media platform X that Canada has long viewed the two-state solution as the best route to lasting peace in the Middle East and to addressing Israel’s security concerns, and that illegal settlements in the West Bank undermine those goals.
The United Nations, Palestinians and most countries consider the settlements illegal under international law, a position Israel disputes. A separate Reuters investigation published on Tuesday found that the Israeli government is funding some of the West Bank’s most radical settlers, who use illegal outpost farms to push Palestinians off their land.
Mixed reactions
France pointed to the rapid growth of settlements and a rise in violence as grounds for its decision. However, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned the sanctions could destabilise the West Bank and said Washington would not join the import ban.
Britain’s chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, criticised the sanctions plan as an example of “gesture politics” and said it represented a bleak moment for British Jews, arguing the measures would end up strengthening the extremism they are meant to counter.
Settlement produce, mainly agricultural goods such as dates, citrus fruit, herbs and wine, accounts for only a small share of Israel’s total exports, meaning the trade bans are largely symbolic rather than economically significant. Israel announced plans for 1,000 new homes in the West Bank on the same day the measures were unveiled. Recent international concern has centred on Israel’s E1 settlement project near Jerusalem, which would cut through land Palestinians see as essential to a future independent state.
Strained ties
Relations between Israel and Britain have deteriorated in recent years amid UK criticism of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the expansion of West Bank settlements and rising settler violence against Palestinians. Britain recognised a Palestinian state in 2025 as part of efforts to advance the two-state solution and had already imposed sanctions over West Bank settlements in June.
France’s move comes amid growing frustration among some EU member states, who have pushed for a bloc-wide response but have been unable to secure the qualified majority needed for EU-level action, largely due to opposition from Germany.
(Reuters)
