UK Foreign Secretary Calls West Bank Settlers 'Terrorists,' Announces Import Ban and Sanctions Regime

Ed Miliband stood in the House of Commons on Tuesday and told MPs that Israeli settlers in the West Bank are committing ethnic cleansing, and that Israel's government has let it happen.

"The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists."

The foreign secretary went further than any previous UK government statement on the occupation. He said Britain now formally regards Israel's occupation of the West Bank as unlawful in its entirety, not merely the settlements built on it, a distinction the UK had previously avoided.

Alongside the declaration, Miliband set out a package of measures:

• An import ban on goods produced in West Bank settlements.
• Sanctions on companies providing construction, financing or other services to settlements.
• A ban on UK advertising of settlement property.
• Personal sanctions targeting individuals accused of promoting or financing settler violence.
• New restrictions on arms export licences for equipment judged to "materially contribute to the occupation."

Miliband said the legislation needed to enforce the trade ban and sanctions would be in place within nine months. He said the UK has already suspended more than 30 arms licences tied to Israeli military use in Gaza, and that Tuesday's measures extend that logic to the West Bank.

He linked the urgency of the announcement to Israel's E1 settlement plan east of Jerusalem, a project that would extend Israeli-controlled territory in a way that could sever the northern and southern West Bank from each other, undercutting the geographic basis for a future Palestinian state.

The UK is not acting alone. France and Canada announced their own bans on settlement goods the same day, joining the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway, which have already imposed similar bans or are moving toward them.

Miliband, who described himself as a "proud British Jew" with relatives who survived the Holocaust and found refuge in Israel, said his position carried no contradiction with support for Israel's existence. "Our argument is not with the people of Israel," he told MPs. "Our argument is with the conduct of its government." He said Britain would also sanction Hezbollah's financing arm, Al-Qard al-Hassan, and reimpose major sanctions on Iran, framing those moves as part of the same response to threats against Jewish communities.

Miliband stopped short of calling Israel's conduct in Gaza genocide, saying the UK would defer to international courts on that question. He said he felt "a deep sense of shame" over what he called three years of "death, destruction and dehumanisation" in the territories, and that acknowledging the occupation's illegality was "the least the people who face such suffering deserve."

The claims that settlement approvals have accelerated sharply in the past four years, and that E1's expansion threatens Palestinian statehood, were presented by Miliband as government assessment rather than independently sourced data in the Commons statement.