By Alexander Cornwell
TEL AVIV, Sept 9 (Reuters) – Israel has told the United Kingdom that it must close its consulate in East Jerusalem within 30 days, two Israeli officials and two sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The closure of the consulate, which represents the British government in Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza on Palestinian issues, is among a series of retaliatory measures by Israel in response to the UK, France and Canada announcing sanctions on Israeli settlements on Tuesday.
British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said on Wednesday he regretted Israel’s decision to order the consulate to close, but said it was not a surprise.
“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.
On Tuesday, Miliband said Israel had “turned a blind eye” to violence carried out by settlers against Palestinians.
British diplomats working at the consulate, whose presence in Jerusalem dates back to 1839, will also lose their diplomatic status in 30 days, the Israeli officials and two sources said.
UK officials assigned to a U.S.-led Gaza coordination mission in Israel, as well as British diplomats based in Ramallah, have been given seven days to leave, one of the Israeli officials and the two sources said.
Israel has also announced that Britain would no longer be allowed to train Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, and that 12 British lawmakers and other nationals, including former Labour Party leader and outspoken critic of Israel Jeremy Corbyn, would be banned from entering the country.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the consulate closure.
Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on X that he had thanked Kemi Badenoch, the leader of the British opposition Conservative Party, for her criticism of the sanctions.
Badenoch wrote in the Sun newspaper that the Labour government was “putting its own party-political interests ahead of our national interest”.
Miliband on Tuesday told lawmakers that, in addition to banning imports of goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the UK would also take measures against companies and individuals providing services to settlements including “construction, infrastructure, financing, or real estate”.
France and Canada also said they would ban the import of products from Israeli settlements, while nine other countries including Denmark and Portugal endorsed the British action.
In response, Saar called the action by Britain “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.
The sanctions are the latest in a series of actions targeting Israel’s settlement policy and underscore its growing diplomatic isolation among some of its traditional allies.
There has so far been a muted response from the United States, with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying Washington did not want to see “anything destabilising” in the West Bank while declining to specifically comment on the UK sanctions.
ISRAEL’S GOVT TO DISCUSS FURTHER RESPONSES – SOURCES
Britain’s chief rabbi condemned the UK sanctions as a “truly dark day”, while British Jewish group Yachad said that the announcement was “not anti-Israel, and it is certainly not antisemitic,” accusing Israel’s “extremist government” of crossing almost every “red line” to entrench its “occupation”.
The sanctions are widely regarded by diplomats as an important but symbolic step, with goods from Israeli settlements making up only a fraction of Israel’s exports, but the move highlights Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation.
Israel’s government has faced mounting international condemnation over Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, in which tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed since October 2023, and more recently over Israel’s expansion of settlements and rising settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Britain, France and Canada were among countries that in 2025 formally recognised the State of Palestine and have previously imposed sanctions targeting settlements and Israeli ministers over accusations of inciting violence against Palestinians.
Israel’s government, which expected the UK sanctions, is set to meet on Wednesday to discuss its response to the other countries that joined Britain by imposing sanctions or endorsing London’s action, said three sources familiar with the matter.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, additional reporting by Paul Sandle in London; Editing by Tom Hogue, Christopher Cushing and Michael Perry)
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