Twelve countries issued a joint declaration on 8 September 2026 committing to restrict trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The signatories are the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Sweden. France, the United Kingdom and Canada committed to national import bans.
The United Kingdom’s measures, announced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband in the House of Commons, cover an import ban on settlement goods — agricultural, processed and manufactured, including from East Jerusalem — a ban on services that support settlements in financing, construction, infrastructure, real estate and advertising, and sanctions on named companies and individuals. The government said the regime should take effect within six to nine months, and later indicated it would extend to the occupied Golan Heights and East Jerusalem.
The countries cited a rapidly deteriorating situation and what they described as unprecedented levels of settler violence, and pointed specifically to Israel’s August 2026 tender for 1,234 housing units in the E1 project, part of a larger plan east of Jerusalem. Miliband said the United Kingdom now regards the occupation as unlawful.
Israel responded by ordering the closure of the British consulate in Jerusalem, an entry ban on around a dozen British nationals including the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the removal of British representatives from a US-led Gaza coordination centre, and an end to British training of Palestinian Authority security forces. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and President Isaac Herzog both criticised the move.
The United States declined to join the measures. The European Union has restated that settlements are illegal under international law and that settlement goods are not entitled to preferential tariff treatment, but has not imposed a bloc-wide ban — member states remain divided. Settlement goods exports to the United Kingdom are estimated at £20–50 million a year within total UK–Israel trade of about £6.2 billion.
