The United Kingdom announced new trade restrictions Tuesday on Israeli settlements in the West Bank, including a ban on imports from the settlements, marking the latest international move against the Israeli communities in Palestinian territories.
“Today, we’re calling out the occupation of Palestine as unlawful,” Ed Miliband, the U.K.’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, said Tuesday. “We’re banning the import of goods from illegal settlements. We’re taking action on services to target those who finance, facilitate, or construct new settlements, and we’re banning advertising of settlement properties and land.”
The U.K. is one of a dozen Western nations to announce trade restrictions on goods made in Israel’s West Bank settlements. Along with the U.K., leaders from Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden also announced restrictions on trade with the settlements they consider “illegal under international law.”
“Together, we are resolute: the two-state solution must be protected, and we will take action in pursuit of a just and lasting peace, based on the principles enshrined in the New York Declaration adopted one year ago,” the nations said in a joint statement. “We firmly oppose actions tantamount to the annexation of Palestinian land and forcible displacement of the Palestinian population.”
The 12 countries called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to “immediately halt the expansion of settlements and civilian administrative powers, ensure accountability for settler violence, and investigate allegations against Israeli forces.” Each of the countries also reiterated their condemnations of antisemitism and Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, saying they are “unequivocally committed to the two-state solution.”
The international move came just days after Netanyahu reportedly ordered unauthorized West Bank settler outposts to be dismantled in the face of scrutiny from the West and its U.S. ally over settler violence against Palestinians.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a staunch ally of Israel, has denounced multiple Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank within the past month.
“If there are squatters that come in and put up their own flags and take possession of something that does not belong to them, if they burn a car, if they torch a mosque, if they go into someone’s home and vandalize it, paint graffiti on the walls, that’s a criminal act,” Huckabee said during a West Bank visit in early September. “But it extends beyond a criminal act. It’s an act of terror.”
NETANYAHU ORDERS DISMANTLEMENT OF WEST BANK SETTLER OUTPOSTS: REPORT
The European nations’ and Canada’s move to announce restrictions on West Bank settlements comes a few weeks out from the three-year anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
It also comes nearly two months after the U.K. appointed new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, marking one of his first major foreign policy moves directed toward the Middle East.