UK government announces ban on goods from Israeli settlements in West Bank

The UK government has announced a ban on all trading on goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, in a move that has prompted fierce backlash from Israel.

Foreign secretary Ed Miliband announced a “reset” of the UK’s relations with Israel in a Commons statement on Tuesday as he accused the Israeli government of turning a blind eye to the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians.

It comes after prime minister Andy Burnham reportedly discussed the move with Donald Trump in a phone call on Monday.

The UK and several other countries, including France and Canada, are following in the path of Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, and Belgium all of whom have legislated for or already implemented a ban on goods originating from the settlements. The EU is discussing a blow-wide ban, but remains divided.

But whether the ban will herald in an era of more widespread rigorous action against Israel is yet to be seen.

The Independent takes a look at what the settlements are, how they trade with the UK, how the ban could be implemented.

The settlements are civilian communities inhabited almost exclusively by Jewish Israeli citizens, that have been built on land captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War.

The West Bank has around 146 official Israeli settlements and 150 to 200 unauthorised outposts, with more than 700,000 Israeli settlers living in the illegally occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. There are another 34 settlements in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, housing more than 30,000 settlers.

In July 2024, the International Court of Justice delivered a landmark opinion which declared that the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, including the settlements, were illegal under international law. The UK ban brings the UK closer into compliance with the ICJ opinion.

Many Israeli settlers believe the West Bank, which they refer to as Judea and Samaria, is part of the Jewish people’s ancestral land, containing several sites that are central to Jewish history.

Settlement expansion has long been Israeli government policy, although the scale and pace has fluctuated over time as governments come and go.

The current government, especially its far-right factions led by police minister Itamar Ben Gvir and finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, has made settlement expansion a cornerstone of their policy. The current government has approved 103 new settlements since 2022, including brand new ones for construction and the retroactive legalisation of some that already existed, according to The Times of Israel.

But even during the more moderate Israeli governments of recent times the settlements grew. During the Oslo peace process between 1993 and 2000, the settler population in the West Bank increased by more than 100,000, a process widely deemed to have damaged the prospects of peace.

The UK currently “strongly advises” against any “economic and financial activities in illegal Israeli settlements”, but has fallen short of an outright ban.

Activities which are currently permitted, although advised against by the government, include financial transactions, investments and donations, purchases, and other economic activities in the settlements or that benefit the settlements.

In February 2020, a report by the UN’s Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) named several British business enterprises involved in activities in the illegal Israeli settlements in a new database.

An investigation by Al Jazeera and public procurement analysts Tussell reported last week that 17 companies and entities linked to the West Bank settlements hold 125 United Kingdom public-sector contracts worth more than £2.1 billion.

But there is also much confusion about exactly which products come from the settlements and which come from Israel proper.

Israeli exporters to Europe have been accused of masking the origin of produce grown in occupied land and passing them off as being from Israel. Global Echo, a legal non-profit, said one in six shipments over a period of eight years had contained agricultural products that originated in illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories and the Syrian Golan Heights, according to The Guardian.

At least 42 per cent had been mislabelled as Israeli-grown, it said.

The government said it will introduce a ban on importing all goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories.

Mr Miliband said the UK will “take action against specific companies and individuals who provide services such as construction, infrastructure, financing, or real estate for settlement expansion”, adding that those who “finance or facilitate” illegal settlements will “face the full force of UK sanctions”.

He added that advertisement of settlement properties will be banned, months after London’s ‘Great Israeli Real Estate’ event was found to have promoted settlement properties.

Legislation for the new regime could take up to nine months to put in place, Mr Miliband said, but he promised immediate sanctions against “extremist settlers who have supported or incited acts of violence”.

Mr Miliband said the government would now refuse all applications for the export of weapons and equipment that would “materially contribute to the occupation”.

The International Development Committee’s chair, Sarah Champion MP, said the acction was “long overdue”:but that she was concerned the “measures announced today may not have an immediate impact”.

Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK’s economic affairs director, had earlier said the “devil will be in the detail”.

“A ban that covers only goods or only imports, leaves services and investment untouched, or lacks real enforcement powers will fall short of the comprehensive prohibition that international law demands and that is needed to hold Israel accountable.”

Concerns have also been raised that Palestinian producers and economic actors could be inadvertently penalised by the ban.