UK considers sanctions against Israeli far-right ministers

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The UK is actively considering sanctions against two of Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right ministers, as London steps up pressure on Israel over violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Britain’s Labour government is discussing imposing travel bans and asset freezes on finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, people briefed on the matter said.

The sanctions would primarily be related to violence in the West Bank, where the UK says there has been a “dramatic surge” in attacks by extremist Jewish settlers against Palestinians over the past 18 months.

While no final decision has been made, the discussion underlines Britain’s growing frustration with the conduct of Netanyahu’s far-right government as it expands its 19-month war against Hamas in Gaza and UK-Israeli relations plummet to a years-long low.

British foreign minister David Lammy said on Tuesday that London would freeze talks on a new trade deal with Israel and announced sanctions on three Jewish settlers accused of inciting violence in the West Bank.

In a speech to parliament, Lammy specifically criticised Smotrich, who on Monday boasted that Israel was “cleansing” Gaza and “destroying everything that’s left” of the enclave.

Lammy said: “We must call this what it is: it is extremist, it is dangerous, it is repellent, it is monstrous and I condemn it in the strongest possible terms.”

He added that the behaviour of the Israeli government was “an affront to the values of the British people”.

Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, powerful members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, are ultranationalist settlers who have long demanded the annexation of the West Bank.

As well as being finance minister, Smotrich has responsibility for Israel’s civilian administrative control in the West Bank.

Ben-Gvir, who was convicted of incitement to racism in 2007, oversees border police in the Palestinian territory, and before taking office kept in his house a picture of Baruch Goldstein, who in 1994 murdered more than two dozen Palestinian worshippers in a mosque in Hebron.

The UK’s foreign office said: “We have introduced sanctions targeting individuals, outposts and organisations perpetrating or supporting violence [in the West Bank].

“We continue to consider future options. It would not be appropriate to speculate about potential future sanctions designations as to do so could reduce their impact,” it said.

The UK, like other western nations, has stood by Israel since Hamas’s October 7 2023 attack, during which the militants killed 1,200 people and seized 250 hostages, triggering the war in Gaza.

But Britain and European powers have ratcheted up the pressure on Netanyahu in recent days as Israel has expanded its offensive in Gaza, taken control of swaths of the strip and killed hundreds of Palestinians.

Netanyahu’s government also imposed an almost two-month full-scale siege on the strip that has deepened a humanitarian catastrophe in the enclave and heightened fears of a famine in Gaza.

Israel began allowing in a minimal amount of aid on Monday, but the UN has warned that not nearly enough aid is reaching the starving and devastated 2mn population that has been forcibly displaced multiple times.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed more than 53,500 people according to Palestinian health officials, while more than 900 have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces since Hamas’s October 7 attack.

Jewish settlers have killed more than a dozen people, driven Palestinians off their land and harassed and intimidated villagers across the West Bank.

Since taking office last year, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer’s government has shifted the UK’s policy on Israel, suspending some arms licences, resuming funding to UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, and dropping a proposed challenge to a request by the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.

The UK is also in discussions with France and Saudi Arabia about whether to recognise a Palestinian state at a UN conference on the conflict in New York next month. No decision has been made on that move, which is being considered as part of European and Arab efforts to push for a sustainable solution to the crisis.