UK to announce trade ban on goods from illegal Israeli settlements

The United Kingdom will announce a trade ban on goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a government minister said, according to British media reports.

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband is expected to present measures against the expansion of settlements to Parliament on Tuesday, Pensions Minister Pat McFadden said.

“The reason that danger has become more urgent is because of expanded settlement activity in recent weeks and months,” he told Times Radio.

Israel in August opened bidding for 1,234 housing units in its E1 project , a controversial settlement plan that would link settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, which Israel has already illegally annexed, to the Maale Adumim settlement bloc in the West Bank.

Palestinians have warned that advancing the plans would lead to confining Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to “disconnected enclaves surrounded by settlements”.

McFadden did not share details on how a UK ban on settlement goods would be enforced. He said settlement growth in recent weeks and months had made the threat to Palestinian statehood more urgent, but that Israel remained an important trading partner.

“This isn’t intended to be a boycott of all Israeli goods,” he told Sky News.

The move also follows weeks of escalating settler pogroms on Palestinian villages, some drawing rare criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the United States ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee.