Over one third of Labour MPs call on London to ban trade with illegal West Bank settlements
The British lawmakers decried explicit Israeli threats to depopulate a Palestinian Bedouin village to expand the E1 settlement bloc
One third of lawmakers from the UK's ruling Labour Party on 8 June called on the government to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, citing a surge in Jewish settler violence and threats to depopulate a Palestinian Bedouin village.
Nearly 140 MPs from Labour sent a letter to Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper requesting her to "take urgent, concrete action to counter the escalation of violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem."
The MPs urged Cooper to ban products from Israeli settlements, which are built on Palestinian land and illegal under international law.
"The case for ending trade with settlements is clear. The international court of justice has directed third states not to enter into 'trade dealings with Israel concerning the occupied Palestinian territory', which is widely interpreted as meaning states must not trade with settlements," the letter stated.
MPs also cited the threat issued by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich last month to approve an order to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar.
The village lies near the E1 settlement bloc, which Israel is expanding to cut the West Bank in half and prevent the future establishment of a Palestinian state on contiguous territory.
Smotrich issued the threat after reports emerged that prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) had requested that judges issue an arrest warrant against him.
"Khan al-Ahmar has been embroiled in a grueling struggle against erasure, displacement, and state-backed settler violence as part of Israel's E1 plan," the MPs wrote.
Forcibly driving out Khan al-Ahmar's residents would constitute a war crime, the lawmakers added.
MP Melanie Ward, who previously worked as the chief executive of Medical Aid for Palestinians, led the initiative to prepare the letter and send it to the Foreign Secretary.
MP Wes Streeting also signed the letter. He has previously accused Israel of committing war crimes in Gaza, describing Israel as a “rogue state.”
"Settlement expansion is illegal, it is an injustice inflicted on the Palestinians, it undermines two states and doesn't make Israel any safer," Streeting wrote on X on Sunday.
Streeting plans to challenge Prime Minister Keir Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party.
Earlier this year, the UK government announced that it would take steps to counter settlement expansion, forcible displacement, and annexation in the West Bank.
The MPs' letter noted, however, that "the situation has worsened considerably" since that time, and the "government has taken no further action. This is unacceptable."
On 3 June, Smotrich announced a new and major illegal settlement project in the occupied West Bank, which aims to see the construction of around 2,000 houses on Palestinian land.
Israel conquered and occupied the West Bank during the Six-Day War in 1967. Since that time, it has built settlements to house hundreds of thousands of Israelis, in a bid to colonize and Judaize the Palestinian territory.
Since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government took office in late 2022, Smotrich and other Israeli ministers have accelerated plans for the de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.