UN expert Albanese urges UK to ban all trade with Israeli settlements

A United Nations expert has urged the UK to implement a comprehensive ban on trade with Israeli settlements, stating it is a crucial step toward a paradigm shift in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on the occupied territories, told The Guardian that the UK's planned ban on trade with unlawful Israeli settlements is a welcome, if overdue, first step that must be judged by its practical impact.

Miliband, the UK foreign secretary, has vowed to act more decisively against Israeli settlements and continued restrictions of aid into Gaza. In response, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee claimed on X that Downing Street was motivated by "Jew hatred," a statement that did not acknowledge Miliband is Jewish. The Israeli foreign ministry also stated that there were no restrictions on medicines entering Gaza.

Albanese emphasized that a settlement trade ban would have to be part of "a true paradigm shift to Israel-Palestine that ultimately seeks to implement the international court of justice advisory opinion in 2024," which declared Israel's presence in occupied territories unlawful. She added that third states have an obligation "not to recognise the situation as legal, and not render aid and assistance in maintaining it."

The UN expert suggested the ban should not be confined to goods like agricultural products and cosmetics, but should also include trade in services, progressively suspending British intelligence cooperation, all arms licensing, and flights out of RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus. Albanese warned that if these steps were not taken, the changes would "over time come to be seen as not amounting to a reckoning, but a press release."

She also noted that a state banning goods from settlements like Ma’ale Adumim while licensing equipment used to enforce checkpoints around it had not changed its relationship with the occupation, but rather rearranged its communication strategy. Albanese pointed out that since bids for the E1 settlement close a week before Israel's elections on October 27, London could not realistically change that calendar in September, but warned the government could not let the tenders pass without consequence.