Israel has ordered the United Kingdom to shut its consulate in East Jerusalem within 30 days, according to two Israeli officials and two people familiar with the matter.
The consulate represents the British government on Palestinian affairs in Jerusalem, the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Its closure is one of several retaliatory steps announced after the UK, France and Canada imposed sanctions on Israeli settlements yesterday.
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Twelve countries announced measures against Israeli settlements in the West Bank following a surge in attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages across the occupied territory.
Israeli settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal under international law.
British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said he regretted Israel’s decision but acknowledged that it had not come as a surprise.
“We weighed the costs and benefits of acting (…) and we thought we simply could not stand by because we feared Israeli action,” he told BBC television.
Ed Miliband said the UK ‘could not stand by’ amid increasing Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank
Mr Miliband said yesterday that Israel had “turned a blind eye” to violence committed by settlers against Palestinians.
He rejected suggestions that the sanctions would undermine intelligence cooperation between Britain and Israel.
“We have important intelligence and security relationships with Israel, and I’m confident they will continue,” he said, declining to provide further details.
“And I was very clear yesterday that we do believe in working with our Israeli partners when it comes to the threats they face from Iran,” he added.
British diplomats at the consulate, which has maintained a presence in Jerusalem since 1839, will lose their diplomatic status after 30 days, the Israeli officials and the two sources said.
British personnel assigned to a US-led Gaza coordination mission in Israel, along with diplomats based in Ramallah, have been ordered to leave within seven days, one of the Israeli officials and the two sources said.
Israel has also said Britain will no longer be permitted to train Palestinian security forces in the West Bank. In addition, 12 British politicians and other nationals, including former Labour Party leader and prominent Israel critic Jeremy Corbyn, will be barred from entering the country.
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not respond to a request for comment on the consulate closure.
Badenoch criticises sanctions
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on X that he had thanked Kemi Badenoch, leader of Britain’s opposition Conservative Party, for speaking out against the sanctions.
Writing in the Sun, Ms Badenoch accused the Labour government of “putting its own party-political-interests ahead of our national interest”.
Mr Miliband said the UK would not only prohibit imports of goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but would also target companies and individuals supplying services to those settlements, including “construction, infrastructure, financing, or real estate”.
France and Canada said they would also ban imports from Israeli settlements. Nine other countries, including Denmark and Portugal, backed the British action.
Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party, was critical of the UK’s move
Mr Saar described Britain’s decision as “morally distorted” and accused the country of “blatant interference in the affairs of a sovereign state and its electoral process” ahead of next month’s Israeli election.
The measures represent the latest international actions aimed at Israel’s settlement policy, while underscoring the country’s growing diplomatic isolation among some of its traditional allies.
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The United States has so far responded cautiously. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington did not want to see “anything destabilising” in the West Bank, but declined to comment directly on the Sanctions.
Britain’s chief rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis, condemned the UK measures as a “truly dark day”. British Jewish group Yachad, however, said the announcement was “not anti-Israel, and it is certainly not antisemitic”, accusing Israel’s “extremist government” of crossing almost every “red line” in its effort to entrench its “occupation”.
Mr Miliband dismissed the rabbi’s criticism of the sanctions.
Diplomats have widely described the measures as significant but largely symbolic. Goods produced in Israeli settlements account for only a small share of Israel’s exports, but the decision nonetheless reflects the country’s worsening diplomatic isolation.
Israel’s government has faced mounting international condemnation over its conduct during the war in Gaza.
Israeli attacks have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023. Israel’s settlement expansion and the rise in settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank have also provoked widespread international criticism.
Britain, France and Canada were among the countries that formally recognised the State of Palestine in 2025. They have also previously imposed sanctions on settlements and Israeli ministers accused of inciting violence against Palestinians.
