UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced on Tuesday that the UK would impose an embargo on all goods imported from Israeli settler colonies in the West Bank, estimated by the UK government to be worth around $50 million dollars per year.He described “ethnic cleansing … perpetrated by settler terrorists” taking place in the West Bank, adopting the UN definition.For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.Milibands statement was accompanied by a joint letter from eleven other nations confirming they would also introduce similar restrictions.He also outlined measures to sanction specific companies providing services of “construction, infrastructure, financing, or real estate for settlement expansion.”The Foreign Secretary opened his hour-long speech with a personal account of his affinity for the state of Israel. A British Jew, his grandfather was killed in the Holocaust, he described some of his “fondest childhood memories picking oranges on the Kibbutz”, Israeli smallholder farms. He emphasized the distinction between supporting Israel and supporting the actions of its government and said, “holding British Jews responsible for the actions of the Israeli government is antisemitism, plain and simple.”The response from Israel and its allies to the statement was swift. US ambassador Huckabee accused Miliband of “Jew Hate” and Israel ordered the closure of the UK consulate in Jerusalem. Gideon Sarr, the Israeli foreign minister, said that “the accusations of the foreign secretary were outrageous and also all false”. Israel has barred 12 British nationals, 11 of which are MPs from entering the country. The UK’s Chief Rabbi described the government’s actions as “a dark day for British Jews.”Speaking on Sky News on Wednesday, Miliband defended both the actions taken by the government and his use of language. New polling by Opinium for the European Council on Foreign Relations found only 18 percent of UK adults opposed the ban on trade with Israeli settlements.The specific measures announced by the UK came in response to the Israeli government moving forward with the E1 settlement plan as well as settlement expansion and settler violence more broadly. E1 is a settlement construction project covering 12 square kilometers in the West Bank between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adummim. The area is inhabited by 3,500 Palestinians from 18 communities who would be evicted, according to the Palestinian Information Center. The settlement is illegal under international law. The position of the British Government, in line with longstanding US foreign policy, is that the construction of E1 would lead to the destruction of the two-state solution as it destroys the contiguous nature of a Palestinian state.Indeed, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, while confirming the approval of tenders to build 3,000 housing units in the E1 project last year, said the move “buried the idea of a Palestinian state.”The plan for E1 settlements has been floated since 1991 but never managed to get final approval as both Democrat and Republican administrations treated it as a red line, Senator Chris Van Hollen told the Washington sun. The second Trump Administration has provided a more accommodating political environment for settlements with record breaking settlement expansion in 2025.Since the occupation of the West Bank, an area west of the River Jordan, following the 1967 war Israel has built 160 illegal settlements housing 700,000 people. Since the beginning of 2025, the UN has recorded 316 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank, and more than 5,600 injured, to the end of July 2026.In Prime Ministers’ Questions on Wednesday, Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Britain is showing leadership by imposing new sanctions against Israeli settlements in the West Bank.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered restrained remarks, refusing to condemn the UK’s sanctions saying “we share the goal of stability” but saying the US “obviously” will not be joining the sanctions.And, according to Axios, the Trump administration did not oppose the UK-led initiative to impose new sanctions on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.