WIREDGOV

Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper yesterday announced coordinated sanctions with international partners targeting individuals and entities involved in financing and enabling settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

• Foreign Secretary to set out tougher UK action in response to record settlement expansion and rising settler violence in West Bank, and push for urgent implementation of the 20 Point Peace Plan
• UK brings together Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand and Norway to deliver coordinated sanctions against networks financing and enabling settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, and firmly advises British businesses against activity in illegal Israeli settlements 
• UK takes further action to support recovery in Gaza, including providing £1m for humanitarian demining, and at least £10m supporting the PA to navigate the fiscal crisis and sustain critical services

In a statement to Parliament yesterday, the Foreign Secretary announced that the UK, alongside partners (Canada, France and Norway) is imposing new sanctions. The UK will impose sanctions on six entities and one individual involved in financing, enabling and carrying out settler violence in the occupied West Bank. Australia and New Zealand published coordinated sanctions last week.   

Australia, Canada, France, Norway, and the United Kingdom have all taken the historic decision to recognise the State of Palestine, reflecting the rights of the Palestinian people and as part of our common efforts to protect the viability of the two-state solution. They are acting together again in support of the same objectives. 

Those designated will face asset freezes and, where appropriate, travel bans and Director Disqualifications. These sanctions will disrupt the flows of finance that have allowed extremist settler groups to act with impunity in the West Bank and demonstrate the UK’s commitment to a two-state solution. 

The UK position remains clear: settlements are illegal under international law, they undermine international efforts to secure a just, lasting peace in the Middle East, and they risk doing permanent damage to the prospects of a secure and viable Palestinian state being able to live in peace alongside a secure Israel.  

For the first time, the Foreign Secretary has also announced that the UK’s official guidance will explicitly advise businesses against economic and financial activity in illegal settlements. The UK continues to support trade with Israel within 1967 lines, but states that there should be no economic involvement in illegal settlements.  

Click here for the full press release