UK FOREIGN SECRETARY Ed Miliband is set to announce sanctions on Israeli settlements in the illegally occupied West Bank in Palestine as part of a “reset” of relations between Britain and Israel. 

Even before the new measures have been announced, which The Times reported include a ban on trade with settlements, Israeli leaders and their international supporters have accused Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s government of “Jew hate” and threatened retaliation. 

Miliband, who is the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors, said in August that the opening of tenders for the construction of an Israeli settlement that would effectively cut the West Bank in half was “unacceptable and destructive”. 

“Britain will not stand back and accept the destruction of the two-state solution,” he said with particular reference to the “E1″ settlement plan. 

He said that “all settlements” damage the prospect of there being two states. 

The Israeli government and the majority of the Israeli public are opposed to the existence of a Palestinian state. 

Burnham discussed the issue with US President Donald Trump in a phone call on Monday ahead of the intervention.

A UK government readout said Burnham had set out “the UK’s commitment to working towards peace and security in the region” and stressed the importance of the two-state solution, but made no mention of how Trump responded.

The Times reported that the Trump administration would make a statement attacking the intervention and Washington’s ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabeehas already said:

“The Brits have lost it. The Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts.”

Government and military-backed Jewish settler terrorism has been rampant across the West Bank in recent years and settlement expansion has rapidly increased since the Hamas-led attacks of October 2023 and the resulting genocide in Gaza. 

“The impact of settler violence and terrorism has been catastrophic for Palestinian communities,” Miliband said. 

More than 620,000 Israeli citizens live in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, all of which are illegal under international law.

The Brits have lost it. The Jew hate of their government knows no boundaries and knows no facts. https://t.co/W6iZ1ZrHrR

— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) September 5, 2026

‘Expel the British ambassador’

Israel has already threatened to retaliate if the UK imposes sanctions, with foreign minister Gideon Saar warning: “If Britain acts against Israel, Israel will act against Britain.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s extremist national security minister, called on his country’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to publicly recognise the Falkland Islands as “Argentine territory under occupation, which the British violently steal from the Argentine people”.

He wrote on X: “The British are not content with merely occupying the territory; they also carry out oil drilling there and steal the money from the Argentine people.

“I call upon Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to recognise Argentina’s sovereignty over the Malvinas Islands and to impose sanctions on Great Britain as long as the occupation continues.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the expulsion of the British ambassador.

“Expel the British ambassador tonight!,” he wrote on X on Monday evening.

“We will not be a doormat trampled by an antisemitic government, in a country conquered by radical Islam, trying to save itself from economic and social decline by attacking Jews and the State of Israel.

“The British Mandate in the Land of Israel is over,” he said, referring to the period during which Britain controlled Palestine before the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948.

With reporting from Press Association