The illegal settlement trade ban is necessary but not sufficient!

We welcome the UK Government’s announcement of a ban on trade with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, recognising that all such settlements are illegal under international law. This is an important and overdue step, and it reflects one of the core calls of the Just Peace Coalition’s Time to Act campaign: that the UK must not allow trade, services, investment or financial relationships to sustain illegal settlements, dispossession, and the denial of Palestinian rights.

However, this must be the beginning, not the end, of the UK’s response. It requires the Government to act consistently across all areas of policy: suspending arms sales to Israel until it complies with international law; ending UK trade and investment links with illegal settlements; reviewing the UK–Israel Trade & Partnership Agreement until the occupation is ended; imposing targeted and meaningful sanctions on those responsible for illegal settlement expansion and violence; and supporting accountability for war crimes and other serious violations.

The test of this announcement will be whether it delivers real change for Palestinian communities facing the theft of their land, ethnic cleansing, apartheid like movement restrictions, colonial-settler violence and the denial of self-determination. The UK must ensure that its policy does not merely condemn illegal settlements, but actively stops UK economic, diplomatic, and political complicity in sustaining them.