UK readies sanctions against Israel to deter proposed illegal West Bank settlement

The UK Foreign Office and a group of western countries are due to announce a package of sanctions against Israel this week designed to deter companies from becoming involved in a new proposed West Bank settlement that would split the territory in two and render the concept of a two-state solution near impossible. The package follows a warning by nine countries including France, the UK and Australia that settlement violence must stop and no company should be involved in what is known as the E1 development. Tenders were opened this month for the development of more than 3,000 homes between Jerusalem and the Ma’ale Adumim. The development would split the West Bank between north and south, and so effectively make a contiguous Palestinian West Bank impossible. It comes as 137 Labour MPs – including the former health secretary Wes Streeting who said this week that he felt he was “hitting up against a brick wall” when he tried to raise concerns about Gaza in government – sent a letter to the foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, urging her to take “urgent, concrete action to counter the escalation of violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, in particular by ending trade with illegal Israeli settlements”. …