UK Suspends Trade Talks With Isreal

The United Kingdom suspended trade negotiations with Israel and sanctioned West Bank settlers as Britain’s top diplomat slammed Israel’s renewed military operation in Gaza as “morally unjustifiable” and “wholly disproportionate.”

The move comes a day after the UK, France and Canada threatened to take “concrete actions,” including targeted sanctions, if Israel does not halt the fresh offensive and continues to block aid from entering Gaza.

Since May 5, Israel has been conducting a new offensive in Gaza, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saying on Monday that his country plans to “take control of the entire Gaza Strip.”

Hundreds have been killed and an Israeli blockade has meant that no aid entered the strip for 11 weeks until Monday, when five trucks were allowed in — a tiny fraction of the 500 trucks that authorities say are required each day to sustain the population.

Speaking to lawmakers on Tuesday, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy stressed that the UK backed Israel’s right to defend itself after the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, but said the conflict was “entering a dark new phase.”

“For 11 weeks Israeli forces have blockaded Gaza, leaving the World Food Programme without any – any – remaining stocks,” he said. “We are now entering a dark new phase in this conflict. Netanyahu’s government is planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the strip to the south and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the UK, Tzipura Hotovely, was summoned over the Israeli offensive in Gaza, as well as Israeli settler violence and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, the Foreign Office statement added.

Lammy also told lawmakers Tuesday the UK government would sanction seven entities related to settler activities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank in October. “Here, too, we must do more. Today, we are therefore imposing sanctions on a further three individuals and four entities involved in the settler movement.”

Lammy added: “We will continue to act against those who are carrying out heinous abuses of human rights.”

Israel’s foreign ministry called the sanctions against the settlers “puzzling, unjustified, and particularly regrettable,” adding that “external pressure will not divert Israel from its path in the fight for its existence and security against enemies seeking its destruction.”

“If, due to anti-Israel obsession and internal political considerations, the British government is willing to harm its own economy — that is its decision,” it said on the UK’s suspending of the trade negotiations.

CNN/Ejiofor Ezeifeoma