https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/10/30/britain-must-sanction-israel-not-just-its-settlers
Israeli forces detained our parliamentary delegation and barred us from the West Bank. The violence we went to investigate is Israeli state policy
By Clive Lewis, Labour MP for Norwich South.
This week I tried to enter the illegally occupied West Bank, along with two other British parliamentarians and an international delegation of observers. We were all interrogated and detained by Israeli forces for nearly eight hours and finally prevented from crossing the border.
Our unpleasant experience pales in comparison to the daily experience of Palestinians living under occupation. Year after year, decade after decade, Palestinians have faced not simply inconvenience but a systematic attempt to eradicate their existence. We have seen a genocide in its most brutal form in Gaza. But in the West Bank we see a slow-motion form of ethnic cleansing, perpetrated by Israeli forces and their settler militias.
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Action needed now
The UK’s announcement of sanctions is important. But the sanctions need to be enacted rapidly; we simply cannot wait six months.
There are three priorities.
First, the foreign secretary’s sanctions package must be enacted in the broadest way possible. The core problem here is not simply about fanatical settlers. It is state policy. Israel’s government has used settler militias to carry out brutal attacks on Palestinians and their land. It is therefore the state that must face sanctions.
What is more, stopping the construction of new settlements is not enough. We must make the whole settlement economy unviable, and roll back decades of apartheid. We have ample opportunity to do so. The text of Britain’s sanctions regulations suggests the government can sanction companies that profit from the illegal settlements. We must do so. And while attention has focussed on companies bidding for the E1 settlement, we also need sanctions targeting entities that help facilitate the maintenance of the illegal settlements that already exist. This should include companies that provide finance, insurance and surveillance technologies to the settlements and the infrastructure around them.
Second, although the government has confirmed that it will stop all arms sales to Israel that materially contribute to the occupation, components for F-35 jets are still allowed to reach Israel, helping keep those planes in the air over Gaza and the West Bank. Arms licences for aircraft that help train the very forces that oversee the occupation also continue. These loopholes must be closed. Let us be frank – we should not be selling weapons to a military which is perpetrating both a genocide and apartheid.
Finally, we cannot forget Gaza. The government’s changes to the Global Human Rights sanctions regime empower it to sanction actors involved in the blocking of humanitarian aid. With Palestinians in Gaza facing disease and starvation this winter, the government must act quickly. This is not simply about individual fanatics blocking trucks; it is state policy, for which Israeli ministers must face sanctions.
And it goes far beyond emergency aid, which will simply keep Palestinians on the verge of starvation. Gaza needs to be rebuilt, and for this the siege must end. Until it does, a full package of sanctions should be applied.
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See the original article at https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2026/10/30/britain-must-sanction-israel-not-just-its-settlers
