Israeli Settlements: Trade Ban

I call Abtisam Mohamed, who will speak for up to 15 minutes.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of a ban on trade with illegal Israeli settlements.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for granting the debate, the Government for allocating time for it, Members from across the House for supporting the application, and 32,000 constituents for writing to their MPs and asking them to attend and speak on this important issue.

Two embattled generations have grown up in the ashes of the collapse of the Oslo accords. What little hope was cultivated then—the promise of two states, of dignity and of democratic rights for all—has been replaced with abject misery. This is how injustice survives: not through one dramatic moment, but through gradual acceptance, the lowering of expectations and the repetition of the same statements while the reality on the ground continues to change.

For years, successive British Governments have said that Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal under international law, that settlements undermine peace and that they threaten the viability of a two-state solution, yet the settlements continue to expand. I pose to the Government the simple question that sits at the heart of this debate: if settlements are illegal, why have we not banned trade with them outright? What exactly is it that we are waiting for? Why do we continue to maintain a status quo that has rewarded Israeli expansionism while punishing Palestinian aspiration—a status quo that has expected Palestinians to quietly accept that their humanity, rights and self-determination must always play second fiddle?

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making such a powerful speech; she always holds up a moral compass to us all in this place. Does she agree that those who deny access to medical treatment to children as young as four—who, while waiting for medical treatment, get to the point of near-fatal dehydration—and those who deny cancer patients in their thousands access to medical care in these settlements, are and should be defined as terrorists? If these settlers should be defined as terrorists, is it not incumbent on us and this Government to strain every diplomatic and every technological sinew to ensure that not one single pound of our money is spent enabling this behaviour?

I agree with my hon. Friend; he makes a powerful point.

Some time ago, the Palestinian ambassador, Dr Husam Zomlot, reminded parliamentarians that Gaza, East Jerusalem and the west bank are not separate issues, but all parts of the same national story. They may be separated, occupied and besieged, but they are all connected by the same struggle for freedom. Together, they are the beating heart of one state of Palestine—a state that the UK, our Government, has quite rightly taken a historic step to recognise. Yet, although we have recognised Palestine in its entirety, we have failed to make that recognition a meaningful reality through any follow-up action.

The expansion of illegal Israeli settlements in the west bank has seen almost 500,000 acres of Palestinian land appropriated since 1967. In the last year alone, more than 120 checkpoints and obstacles have been installed to control Palestinian movement. More recently, the E1 settlement plan, which was approved by the Israeli Government, includes just short of 3,500 housing units. It includes the construction of a new neighbourhood, a new employment and commercial zone, and a new bypass road, which is for Palestinians only.

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point. She points out that Conservative and Labour Governments have for decades recognised these settlements as illegal, and now things are worse than ever. We have recognised Palestine, which is a good thing, but with the expansion plan and the promised further occupation, it is surely inconsistent for us not to have a complete ban on illegal settlement goods. If not now, when?

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

The new bypass road, which is for Palestinians only, will reroute Palestinians and seal off the E1 corridor permanently. This is a state-wide strategy that uses every civilian and military means to appropriate land, isolate Palestinians and make a Palestinian state impossible to realise.

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. As somebody who first voted in this place to recognise Palestine in 2014, I think it is absolutely imperative that we realise a two-state solution if we are ever to see peace and prosperity for either Israel or Palestine. Does she agree that the very conduct she is talking about puts that two-state dream at risk, and that that is why it must stop?

I agree with my hon. Friend, and that is why it is essential that we are having this debate and that there must be a ban on trade. I will not take further interventions now because I have to make progress.

The annexation has accelerated so fast that today 750,000 settlers are believed to be living on occupied Palestinian land. Their presence each year robs the Palestinian economy, which is largely agricultural, of over £38 billion. Water in the west bank is extracted disproportionately to sustain Israel and Israeli settlers. Seventy per cent of grazing land in the occupied territories is systematically denied to Palestinians. Olive orchards are regularly set on fire. Toxic waste is dumped on their crops to destroy their economic future—I could go on.

Between 2009 and 2020, Israeli settlers in area C received 22,000 building permits; for Palestinians, the figure was just 66. When Palestinians build their homes, their presence is rendered illegal and they are often slapped with demolition orders. Settlers, however, can have their illegal outposts given full legal status by the Israeli Government. In the last two years alone, 3,500 Palestinians have been displaced in the west bank. That is over 80 communities. This is an Israeli Government-backed policy reaching far and wide across the west bank.

Will the hon. Lady give way?

I will, and it will be my final intervention.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady; I did give her advance notice that because of the rescheduling of the debate, I would seek to intervene on her. As she knows, I visited the area a year ago, and the whole situation is unacceptable; in fact, the Foreign Secretary has already referred to the current circumstances as “settlement terrorism”. Does she agree that taking action on this is about not just cast-iron sanctions on trade but financial services and visas, including visas of British citizens who serve in the Israel Defence Forces?

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. The first act should be that we seek to stem trade from the settlements; the other points are valid ones that must be explored.

Let us imagine two children born in the same land: one is born in an Israeli settlement; the other is born in a Palestinian community—perhaps one of the 58 refugee camps scattered across the nearby region. They may be separated by only a few miles, but they will grow up under entirely different systems. One will enjoy unrestricted freedom of movement, infrastructure investment, dependable access to healthcare, free-flowing water, the right to be educated, legal protections and state support. The other may face military restrictions, checkpoints, demolitions, land seizures and profound uncertainty about their future. They will both have the same dreams, the same hopes, the same potential, yet one will grow up benefiting from a system of privilege while the other experiences the consequences of occupation. These two children will be governed by two different sets of laws, one civilian and one military. I am sure everyone will be able to guess which child is which. These waves of injustice will keep flowing, over families, over communities, over generations. How is it possible that two children in the west bank can have such different experiences, yet still there is denial that it is apartheid?

Across Europe, action is starting to take shape. Ireland has moved forward towards a ban on settlement goods. Spain has already implemented a ban. The Belgian Council of Ministers is expected to agree the detail of a ban tomorrow and for it to be in place by the end of this year. Belgium has also asked the European Commission to bring proposals to the Foreign Ministers meeting on 13 July. The Netherlands has begun moving beyond a policy of simple discouragement and has tabled a legal instrument to ban settlement trade. These countries have looked at the same legal questions and the same settlement expansions. They have the same international obligations as we do, but they have concluded that words alone are not enough. The UK remains hesitant, which should concern us all because our Government do have the tools to act. The issue is not capability, but political will.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) on the tone of her speech, and I agree with her motion.

I could give a speech on dry, legalistic grounds, which in themselves are completely obvious, to show why we should have a trade ban with illegal settlements—because of the Geneva convention, or because of the fact that these settlements rely on international trade. The case is overwhelming, but I want to be more emotional.

I am a Conservative MP. I am not the sort of person who goes on marches, or who chants about a Palestine from the river to the sea. I am also realistic about the fact that Israel is surrounded by enemies. I am profoundly philosemitic, and profoundly immersed in Jewish culture—I read the Old Testament every day and that sort of thing. I have been to the site of the music festival; I have wept at the appalling pogrom against our Jewish brothers. So I am emotional, and I am entirely in favour of the right of Jewish people to defend themselves.

But this is so different. I have been to the west bank; I have seen what is going on there. This is profoundly wrong. People who have merely tilled their land for 2,000 years are being bullied and forced out. Even when we went there, we were confronted with armed settlers. This is outrageous. The whole House should cry out against it with one voice, and the Government should take action. That is why the motion is so important.

The Father of the House got the timing bang on without my having to put a time limit on him, but I will now put a five-minute limit on speeches.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for her powerful speech, and it is an absolute honour to follow the Father of the House.

On the west bank, settlement expansion continues in violation of UN Security Council resolution 2334. That includes the E1 project that aims to cut the west bank in half, and separate East Jerusalem. Last month, Israel approved 2,000 settlement housing units across the west bank, bringing the total approved this year to over 6,000. Those settlements continue to destroy historic Palestinian communities, any chance of long-term peace and a two-state solution. They are also accompanied by staggering levels of violence, and co-ordinated attacks on civilians and religious sites, facilitated by a culture of impunity.

According to the UN, there has been an average of six attacks every day against Palestinians in the west bank since the start of 2026. A recent report from the UN Secretary-General highlighted a steep rise in attacks by settlers on Palestinian children, reportedly often supported by Israeli security forces. It is part of a surge of settler aggression across the west bank, driven by the dynamics of Israeli politics.

We know that elections in Israel must be held by the end of October at the latest, and as things stand, Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right bloc is facing the prospect of defeat. The radical settler elements in the coalition are scrambling to impose facts on the ground in the west bank before the elections. Throughout 2025 and the first half of this year, the creeping de facto annexation of the west bank has increased greatly, driven primarily by farm outposts, which require none of the planning and construction work of older settlements. According to a report published on Monday by Kerem Navot, and its fellow activist organisation Peace Now, farm outposts now control more than 100,000 hectares, which is 18% of the entire west bank. Nearly one third of that wholesale seizure took place in 2025.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed) for laying out her remarks so clearly—much better than I could have done—and to the Father of the House. Emotion rightly comes into this debate. We are not just legislators, and we need to bring that sense of feeling.

My hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Harpreet Uppal) is right to highlight not just that the settlements are happening, but that the aggression, backed up by the Israeli Government, exacerbates the issue. Does she have any hope that, realistically, any election in Israel will change that, and does she agree with me and my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central that we need to act internationally to resolve this? I do not have faith that an election in Israel will stop this happening.

I agree, and I will come on to that point in a moment.

Recourse to the law has been cut off almost entirely for Palestinians, particularly since another settler extremist, Ben-Gvir, was made National Security Minister. The violence is horrific, and it must end. The Government have been clear that we oppose the expansion of the settlements, which are a violation of international law, and I welcome the sanctions on individual settlers and settler networks that the Foreign Secretary announced last month. However, my constituents have been clear that we must go further.