LONDON — The United Kingdom announced sanctions Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2026, targeting illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, accusing Israel’s government of turning a blind eye to what Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband called the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians by settlers — and Israel answered within hours by shutting the UK’s consulate in East Jerusalem.

In a statement to MPs, Miliband said the measures mark the “beginning of a new approach” that “not only calls out injustice and suffering but acts.” The package, he said, will ban settlement goods and move against companies and individuals who provide services for settlement expansion. Over the next six to nine months, the UK will introduce “a new comprehensive sanctions regime” aimed at settlements and settlement growth — “not Israel,” Miliband stressed — plus a ban on advertising illegal West Bank settlements in the UK.

“The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists. And all too often the Israeli government has turned a blind eye to this and worse, members of it have made statements and taken actions to support the forced displacement of Palestinians.”

Miliband tied the UK’s position to a 2024 International Court of Justice advisory opinion, saying the government’s view is that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is unlawful because of entrenched control, an intention to extend permanent sovereignty, and expansion via illegal settlements — and that those findings should shape Britain’s “economic relationship” with the occupied territory.

France and Canada joined the UK in a statement calling the action “a further turning point” in protecting a two-state solution. A wider joint statement with Denmark, Spain, Finland, Ireland, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden pledged national measures or support for European restrictions on trading settlement goods. Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the targeted measures were “aimed not at the Israeli people, but in support of the two-state solution,” the BBC reported.

Israel’s answer: consulate closed, MPs banned

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar accused Miliband of spreading an “outrageous lie,” announced the closure of the UK consulate that represents London in Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, and said 11 UK MPs — including Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott, and all five sitting Green Party MPs — would be banned from entering Israel over alleged “antisemitic and anti-Israel activity.”

“Unfortunately, we have a hostile Labour government that is consistently operating against the State of Israel, and it has left us no choice but to respond to its hostile actions.”

The diplomatic rupture lands as Israel has opened tenders for roughly 1,200 settlement homes in the strategically sensitive E1 area east of Jerusalem — plans long delayed under international pressure and now drawing fresh condemnation. Settlements are illegal under international law; settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has risen in recent months, per the BBC’s reporting.

Trade tools and consulate keys are how governments price a conflict they won’t fight. Tuesday’s exchange put that price on the table in public: sanctions language from London, a locked consulate door from Jerusalem, and another turn of the settlement map in between.

Sources