Israel orders out British troops monitoring settler attacks after UK sanctions on West Bank

A small British military unit known as the British Support Team, based in Ramallah and responsible for reporting on Israeli settler violence and supporting the Palestinian Authority’s policing, was told to depart Israel within a week. The expulsion follows Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s decision to sanction companies operating in the occupied West Bank, a step he said was needed because settlement expansion threatens a two-state solution.

In response, Israel’s foreign minister ordered the British consulate in East Jerusalem to close and prohibited eleven British MPs, including all Green Party members and former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, from entering the territory. Israeli officials allegedly intercepted the BST’s communications, according to a source. The action underscores escalating tensions over settlement growth, which the UK has condemned as “rampant settler terrorism” and “ethnic cleansing”. The British Ministry of Defence described the BST as the most reliable source of security information from the West Bank for the international community.