Declassified UK: Not far enough

Posted: 18th September 2026

Hamza Yusuf

Regular Contributor
Declassified UK

Britain’s sanctions on Israel’s illegal settlements are insufficient, lawyers have warned.

In a six-page letter, more than 130 lawyers, former judges and legal academics cautioned that measures introduced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband fail to meet the UK’s obligations under international law.

While the ban on trade in goods with Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank was welcomed, the experts said the action “falls far short” of Britain’s obligations under the 2024 International Court of Justice ruling regarding Israel’s illegal occupation.

The letter’s signatories include prominent barrister Michael Mansfield KC, former Lord Justice of Appeal Sir Alan Moses and Ralph Wilde, professor of international law at UCL.

They call on the government to commit to further, more rigorous measures to ensure that no part of the UK’s economic relationship with Israel sustains its illegal occupation.

These include extending sanctions to insurance, accountancy and digital infrastructure, and imposing a full arms embargo on Israel.

The lawyers contrast what they call the “improperly narrow approach” towards Israel with the more sweeping measures applied to Russia, noting that “the UK’s Russia sanctions are not confined to economic activity in occupied Ukrainian territory” but are instead designed to cripple the structures viewed as enabling, financing or benefiting from Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.

“We ask the UK Government to close that gap, and to do so because the law requires it”, they urge.

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Previous steps announced by Conservative and Labour governments to hold Israel to account, curb settlement expansion or settler violence have largely been symbolic, doing little to slow either. That precedent, the experts warn, underscores the need for concrete implementation to prevent the latest measures from following the same pattern.

Those patterns, however, look set to persist. 

The Ministry of Defence confirmed this week that the UK-Israel military cooperation agreement signed in 2020, which has remained in place throughout the genocide, will remain in force.

Ed Miliband also told the House of Commons last week that Britain’s intelligence relationship with Israel will not be affected by the new sanctions. 

In a nod to the inconsistency, the letter also rightly notes that the Burnham government has already overseen at least ten military flights departing from UK Royal Air Force (RAF) bases for Israel.

So, while a comprehensive reset of Britain’s policy towards Israel was promised, the growing body of evidence suggests continuity better describes the approach.

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