Ed Miliband is expected to set out the measures in a statement to MPs on Tuesday. Photograph: Neil Hall/EPA
Ed Miliband to reassert support for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution in move fiercely criticised by US and Israel
Ed Miliband will announce a broad reset of the UK’s relations with Israel on Tuesday, promising the government will take a more active approach in supporting the Palestinian cause.
In an intervention which has already drawn fierce criticism from the US and Israel, the foreign secretary will impose a UK ban on the trade in goods and some services from illegal Israeli settlements.
He has also told civil society groups he is determined to reassert support for a two-state solution to the conflict, with an appeal for the protection of Palestinian rights and respect for international law.
The prime minister, Andy Burnham, spoke to the US president, Donald Trump, on Monday night, a call which No 10 said “stressed the importance of a two-state solution”, but it gave no other details of the conversation.
On Tuesday the US ambassador to Israel said the US could issue its own reprisals against the UK. Mike Huckabee, who had claimed the Labour government is gripped by “Jew hatred”, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it would “do great damage to any Brits who are doing business in a number of states in the US”.
Comment by dizzy: It’s an inadequate and delayed response by the UK government following it’s extended active participation is Israel’s Gaza genocide. [11am: Actually continuing UK’s active participation in Israel’s Gaza genocide. Addressing illegal settlements only is inadequate(ed: and a distraction). ]
What’s needed is a total severance of relations with Israel: it needs to be recognised and treated as a state committing the war crimes of genocide and forced displacement. Anything less that that may be regarded as complicity in genocide. Arms sales and military assistance and co-operation must end.
Genocide denying UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says that UK is suspending 30 of 350 arms licences to Israel. He also confirms the UK government’s support for Israel’s Gaza genocide and the UK government and military’s active participation in genocide.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpA
Esmaeil Baghaei Hamaneh, spokesperson of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, delivers his weekly press conference on June 1, 2026. (Photo by Foad Ashtari/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
“We cannot accept any orders being dictated upon us,” said the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry. “If they continue with this philosophy, they will not get any different result.”
As US President Donald Trump returns to bombing Iranian territory, Esmaeil Baghaei Hamaneh, the spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said at a press conference on Tuesday that it’s only a sign of the quagmire he’s found himself in, and emphasized that the only way out will be negotiation rather than force.
“It has become clear they are now stuck in the massive error they’ve made, and it’s their usual habit to raise excessive demands,” Baghaei said, noting that mediation efforts by Pakistan were continuing even as the Trump administrationclaims that Iran is refusing “meaningful negotiations.”
When Trump launched the war in February, he predicted that Iran would be brought to its knees in a matter of weeks. Six months later, there is no sign that an end to the conflict is in sight as Trump rejects a return to the negotiating table.
Baghaei said Iran was willing to reach another agreement to end the war. The problem, he said, was that Trump had shown himself unwilling to follow any deal that included concessions to Iran and was demanding its full capitulation.
“We cannot accept any orders being dictated upon us,” Baghaei said. “If they continue with this philosophy, they will not get any different result.”
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian echoed Baghaei’s position on Tuesday, saying that Iran would “immediately reciprocate” if Washington honored its commitments under the June interim agreement.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei is holding a press conference and denouncing US “ill intentions” against his country. pic.twitter.com/ykv4zoQnUG
Failing to break Iran with military might, Trump tried to switch last month to a strategy of “economic warfare,” imposing “the toughest sanctions in history” and pressuring other nations around the world to do the same in an effort to isolate Iran and fully topple its government.
Baghaei acknowledged that US sanctions were having a devastating effect on the people of Iran. According to Reuters, Iran’s foreign trade is down by 35%, and inflation reached 66% in July, cranking up the pain felt by the civilian population.
But efforts to create the “greatest coordinated economic isolation in the history of the world,” as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent described it, have faced resistance, with Iran’s major trading partners such as China and Pakistan refusing to cut ties.
“Six months of US bombing and naval blockade have produced no US victory, so the plan now is to starve Iran into capitulation,” wroteColumbia University professor Jeffrey Sachs and UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network adviser Sybil Fares on Monday for Al Jazeera. “The new approach is illegal, cruel, and will fail for several reasons.”
“To begin with, there is the historical record. Economic sanctions do not bring down governments determined to survive them. Yes, sanctions can impoverish populations, empower the security services that control smuggling, and hand the targeted nation a rallying point built on US malice,” Sachs and Fares wrote.
They added that at a time when Iran’s restrictions on travel through the Strait of Hormuz have spiked oil prices and sent shocks through the global economy, there is little incentive for the world to cut off Iran’s oil exports as well.
“The US proposes to deepen a stagflationary shock already being borne by Europe, Japan, and its other allies, and orders those countries to enforce sanctions that will throttle their economies,” they wrote.
And due to Trump’s erratic policy, disregard for the United Nations Charter in launching a war of aggression, and the demonstration that his assurances are “unreliable,” Sachs and Fares noted that countries are increasingly reaching agreements that rely less on US military guarantees and dollar-based trade.
“Pride goeth before the fall, and no government today is more arrogant than the US under Trump and his enforcer, Bessent,” they wrote. “Governments around the world will not follow the US blindly into disaster.”
Donald Trump sings and dances, says that it’s fun to kill everyone … unless he gets distracted or falls asleep.Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Billboards featuring the late former Iranian leader Ali Khamenei and his son Mojtaba Khamenei, who were killed in U.S. and Israeli attacks against Iran on February 28, are displayed on the Rafic Hariri International Airport highway with the text reading “Thank you, loyal Iran” in Beirut, Lebanon on June 21, 2026.[Houssam Shbaro – Anadolu Agency]
Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said on Sunday that rulers of Muslim countries should recognise what he called “the true enemy,” accusing the US and Israel of being “sworn enemies” of Islamic unity, Anadolu reports.
“My emphatic and repeated recommendation to the rulers of Islamic countries, particularly those in West Asia and along the Gulf, is to identify your true enemy, understand its plan and confront it,” Khamenei said in a message marking “Islamic Unity Week,” according to Iran’s state-run broadcaster IRIB.
Unity among Muslims is essential “for achieving the beloved and dominant Islamic civilisation,” he stated.
The US and Israel are “the sworn enemies of this unity and friendship,” Khamenei claimed, saying that Washington and Tel Aviv are not only “enemies” of Iran but also of the “entire” Islamic world.
Tensions in the Middle East have heightened since the US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran in late February, prompting Tehran to launch retaliatory strikes on regional countries hosting US assets.
Iran and the US agreed to a ceasefire in April and subsequently signed a memorandum of understanding in June aimed at ending their military conflict and reaching a lasting peace agreement.
The deal, however, collapsed last month, with Tehran and Washington exchanging attacks for nearly two weeks before US President Donald Trump abruptly halted the bombardment amid reports of talks to resolve the conflict.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
US navy sailors on the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln as part of Operation Epic Fury, on 28 February 2026. Photograph: US navy/Getty Images
{Guardian] Exclusive: Experts and former officials say accounts are running dry, and funding a war with no clear endgame is the main challenge
Donald Trump’s war on Iran has driven the US military into a severe financial crisis, with the US navy forced to transfer money from its payroll and other sources to cover the costs of combat, according to documents obtained by the Guardian, and interviews with navy officials, contractors and defense analysts.
The US-Israeli operation, which has depleted US munitions stockpiles and prompted retaliatory Iranian strikes that have wrecked strategic bases across the Middle East, is piling pressure on budgets across the military.
One Pentagon memo about navy funding seen by the Guardian warns that there are “shortfalls in payroll” accounts due to the department “raiding” them to fund combat operations.
…
When Trump started the war on 28 February, it quickly strained the military’s existing budgets – particularly that of the navy, which not only helped launch the initial wave of attacks but was later responsible for an extensive naval blockade. The White House eventually asked Congress for emergency funding to pay for the war efforts, but prospects that the request will be approved are dim amid the unpopularity of the war.
A navy official who was briefed on how the service is planning to address the shortfalls said money is shifted around in imaginative ways. “The money for payroll,” he said, “was robbed to pay for overseas contingencies and is being backfilled by money that hasn’t been spent. They are backfilling payroll so we get enough money in our paycheck.”
Donald Trump explains why he established his Bored of PeaceDonald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
A US Air Force KC-135 Stratotanker refuels a P-8 Poseidon aircraft near the Strait of Hormuz, on April 21, 2026. [CENTCOM – Anadolu Agency]
The US has begun returning aerial refueling aircraft to its bases in the Middle East amid rising tensions with Iran, as Israeli officials believe Washington would give a green light for Tel Aviv to resume attacks against Tehran, according to Israeli media on Wednesday.
“It is estimated that the Americans will give the green light to an Israeli response in Iran,” the public broadcaster KAN said.
Channel 12 said Israel’s defense establishment is closely monitoring the situation following an exchange of attacks between Washington and Tehran on Wednesday.
According to the outlet, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to hold a security consultation this evening with Defense Minister Israel Katz to discuss developments related to Iran.
Early Wednesday, US President Donald Trump said the US will “probably” hit Iran again on Wednesday night, following overnight US strikes in retaliation for attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump also said that the memorandum of understanding signed last month with Iran to end the conflict was “over.”
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said early Wednesday that it had launched missile and drone strikes targeting 85 US military sites in the region, including Salman Port and the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain, and Ali Al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait.
The attacks came after the US military’s Central Command said it had carried out a new round of strikes against Iran, hitting more than 80 targets in response to Iranian attacks on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Straight of Hormuz despite saying only 9 days ago that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
