UK and allies impose sanctions on firms enabling West Bank settler violence

The UK in alliance with a group of other western powers including France and Norway has announced it is imposing sanctions on six firms and one individual involved in enabling and financing the recent upsurge in settler violence in the West Bank.

However, the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, disappointed many of her own backbenchers by stopping short of banning trade, saying instead the government was only issuing updated advice to British firms not to become involved in any economic activity with the illegal settlements.

Cooper told MPs it was difficult in practice to construct an enforceable trade ban but would keep examining the issue in alliance with international partners.

More than 130 Labour MPs, including all the party’s select committee chairs, had called for a complete ban on trade, saying the measure was necessary to fulfill orders issued by the international court of justice in 2024.

Emily Thornberry, the chair of the foreign affairs select committee, told Cooper “the truth is that British firms are bankrolling annexations one settlement at a time”, adding she feared the government was “in danger of doing too little too late”.

The latest guidance explicitly advises UK businesses against economic and financial activity in illegal settlements in territories occupied by Israel since 1967, but does not amount to a ban or impose any penalty for noncompliance.

The government is also not hardening its existing advice on the need to clearly label products produced in illegal settlements.

Since 2005, any products produced in Israeli settlements have not been entitled to benefit from preferential tariff treatment upon entry to the UK.

The new guidance to states: “Businesses should not engage in economic and financial activities in Israeli settlements.”

Warning that the settlements are illegal under international law, it says economic activity may result in reputational damage and “in disputed titles to the land, water, mineral or other natural resources which might be the subject of purchase or investment”.

But the UK advice to business continues to laud trade with Israel within 1967 lines: “With its strong economic performance in terms of growth, low inflation and a low unemployment rate, Israel offers an attractive growing market for UK companies.”

The scale of settler violence has proliferated in recent months, and Israel has recently invited bids for tenders for the E1 development, a settler plan for about 3,500 homes that if implemented would sever the West Bank in two.