Ed Miliband is expected to set out a package of measures on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank in the Commons on Tuesday, delivering what the foreign secretary has twice promised on the record as a "comprehensive reset" of British policy towards Israel.
The announcement, trailed by the Guardian, Middle East Eye, the Jerusalem Post, The National and Jewish News, is expected to include a ban on trade with settlements that Britain and the International Court of Justice regard as illegal under international law. It would mark the sharpest change in the UK's dealings with Israel in decades, and has already drawn warnings of retaliation from the Israeli government and an accusation of "Jew hate" from the US ambassador to Israel.
The government has not published the content of the package. The legal mechanism, the definitions of which goods and services fall inside it, whether East Jerusalem is covered, any commencement date and any penalties all remain unset out publicly, and every account of the detail rests on unnamed government sources.
Miliband first committed to measures in a Foreign Office statement on 19 August, the day after Israel opened a tender for housing in the E1 area east of Jerusalem. "In the coming weeks we will set out a comprehensive set of measures to respond to Israeli government policies, protect the viability of the Palestinian state, target sanctions at those who participate in illegal settlement expansion and support a just and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians," the statement said.
Taking Foreign Office questions in the Commons for the first time on 1 September, he went further. "This Government will not acquiesce in the destruction of the two-state solution. We will act, and I will set out a comprehensive set of measures in the coming weeks," he said, according to PA. "We need a comprehensive reset of our policy across the piece."
He told MPs the government was examining "our wider economic relationship with the occupied territories and the different tools we have to tackle it", adding, in PA's rendering: "I want to be very clear: we do not want British companies financing, constructing, or advertising new settlements."
The Guardian reported on Monday that the ban would cover goods and some services, and that the package amounted to a broader shift towards active British support for the Palestinian cause. Neither the qualification on services nor that characterisation has been corroborated elsewhere. Other accounts differ: the Jerusalem Post has reported the regime would likely cover both goods and services, while Bloomberg reported in August that ministers were considering a ban on all goods and services. What Miliband and the Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty have said at the despatch box covers goods.
The trigger is E1. Israel published a tender on 18 August for 1,234 housing units, about a third of the 3,401 units given final approval in August 2025, according to Human Rights Watch and the Israeli monitoring group Peace Now. Bids close on 19 October, a week before Israel's general election on 27 October. The plan remains subject to a petition brought by Peace Now in Israel's supreme court.
In his August statement Miliband called the tender "an unacceptable and destructive act", saying E1 "would cut across the heart of Palestine and risks separating the West Bank from East Jerusalem, which would endanger the viability of a two-state solution".
Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, warned on 1 September that his government would respond. "If Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain," he told a Hebrew-language podcast interview with Ynet, according to the Times of Israel. He has not specified what measures Israel would take.
The row has also strained relations with Washington. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, posted on X on 5 September: "The Brits have lost it. The Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts." The post followed a video in which Miliband, who is Jewish, described accounts of medicines being blocked from entering Gaza. Israel's foreign ministry disputed that on the same day, stating on X that "there are no restrictions whatsoever on the entry of medicines into the Gaza Strip, and that no medicines are being blocked". The Jewish Chronicle reported that the Foreign Office did not respond directly to the ambassador's attack. An FCDO spokesperson told the paper: "Israel is an important strategic partner for the UK. Our relationship is built on decades of cooperation, and we continue to engage regularly with the government of Israel at multiple levels across a broad range of issues."
Jewish communal organisations have lobbied against the measures. The chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, who met Miliband on 28 August, said in a statement two days later that he had explained "why I believe the UK Government's intended sanctions will be counter-productive and even endanger such a vision of peace", and that "many within the UK Jewish community will view such measures with deep dismay, at a time when the vilification of Jews, Judaism and the Jewish State has already reached unprecedented levels".
Communal leaders met the prime minister, Andy Burnham, in Downing Street on 3 September. In a joint statement published by the Board of Deputies of British Jews after the 75-minute meeting, they said they had "conveyed significant concerns about the unintended consequences of policies the government is considering in relation to settlements". Its president, Phil Rosenberg, told the Jewish Chronicle: "Our community condemns violence by extremist settlers. But we have significant concerns about unintended consequences."
The shadow foreign secretary, Tom Tugendhat, appointed at the end of August, warned in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph that sanctioning Israel over settlements could put British security at risk and make it harder to prevent terror attacks, pointing to intelligence co-operation between the two countries.
Pressure for a ban predates Burnham's government. Around 140 Labour MPs wrote to the then foreign secretary in June calling for one, according to a House of Commons Library briefing, and Layla Moran presented a bill the same month to prohibit such trade. The Commons held a backbench debate on the question on 9 July, and the Foreign Affairs Committee called in July 2025 for preparations for a comprehensive import ban.
Total UK trade with Israel in goods and services was £5.9bn in the four quarters to the end of March 2026, down 2% on the equivalent period a year earlier, according to a Department for Business and Trade factsheet published on 31 July. Israel was Britain's 43rd largest trading partner, accounting for 0.3% of UK trade. Goods originating in settlements are not separately identified in UK official statistics, which treat Palestine as the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said on Monday that "all states carry an obligation - not a preference of an obligation - not to recognise the situation as legal, and not render aid and assistance in maintaining it".
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