Israel has given the United Kingdom a 30-day deadline to close its consulate in East Jerusalem, two Israeli officials and two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The consulate handles British representation on Palestinian issues in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
The move is one among several punitive measures Israel announced in reaction to sanctions imposed earlier this week by Britain, France and Canada on Israeli settlements, officials said. The diplomatic escalation follows the trio of countries’ decisions to restrict imports of settlement goods and take targeted measures against settlement-related activities.
Diplomatic staff and timelines
Sources said British diplomats stationed at the East Jerusalem consulate, a presence that dates back to 1839, will lose their diplomatic status after 30 days. Separate UK personnel assigned to a U.S.-led Gaza coordination mission inside Israel, together with British diplomats based in Ramallah, were reportedly given seven days to depart, according to one of the Israeli officials and the two additional sources.
Israel also announced it would bar Britain from continuing to train Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, and the government said 12 British lawmakers and other nationals - including former Labour leader and outspoken critic of Israel Jeremy Corbyn - would be banned from entering the country.
British response and statements
British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said on Wednesday he regretted Israel’s directive to shut the consulate, but added he was not surprised. "We weighed the costs and benefits of acting (...) and we thought we simply could not stand by because we feared Israeli action," he told BBC TV, underlining that London had anticipated a response.
On Tuesday, Miliband had accused Israel of having "turned a blind eye" to violence carried out by settlers against Palestinians. He also told lawmakers that, in addition to banning imports of goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the UK would take measures against companies and individuals providing services to settlements including "construction, infrastructure, financing, or real estate."
Israeli ministers and reactions
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the closure of the consulate. Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar posted on X that he had thanked Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the British opposition Conservative Party, for her criticism of the sanctions. Badenoch told The Sun newspaper that the Labour government was "putting its own party-political interests ahead of our national interest." Saar described Britain’s action as "morally distorted" and accused the UK of "blatant interference in the affairs of a sovereign state and its electoral process" ahead of next month’s Israeli election.
Broader diplomatic context
France and Canada joined Britain in announcing bans on the import of products from Israeli settlements. Nine additional countries, among them Denmark and Portugal, endorsed the British action, officials said. Diplomats have characterized the sanctions as an important but largely symbolic step, noting that goods produced in settlements represent only a fraction of Israel’s exports.
The measures are the latest in a sequence of international steps targeting Israel’s settlement policy. The announcements underscore a widening diplomatic rift between Israel and some of its traditional allies and come amid mounting international criticism of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have died since October 2023, and of the expansion of settlements and rising settler violence in the West Bank.
Responses and implications
There has been a muted response from the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington did not want to see "anything destabilising" in the West Bank while declining to specifically comment on the UK sanctions, according to the reporting. Within Britain, the chief rabbi described the sanctions as a "truly dark day," while Jewish group Yachad defended the measures as "not anti-Israel, and it is certainly not antisemitic," accusing Israel’s "extremist government" of crossing nearly every "red line" to entrench its "occupation."
Three sources familiar with the matter said Israel’s government - which had expected the UK’s actions - was due to meet on Wednesday to consider further responses to other countries that had either imposed sanctions or publicly endorsed Britain’s measures.
The situation remains fluid and highly political, with immediate effects on diplomatic presence, security cooperation, and trade ties between Israel and the countries involved. Observers inside the reporting on this matter note the symbolic weight of the sanctions despite limited direct economic impact from settlement goods on Israel’s total exports.