The UK is expanding its sanctions powers to freeze assets and target entities enabling illegal Israeli settlements, obstructing humanitarian aid or unlawfully holding prisoners. The statutory instrument introducing the global human rights and international humanitarian law sanctions adds three new grounds to the 2020 regime: serious violations of international humanitarian law, obstruction of humanitarian assistance and serious violations of the right to liberty and security of person. Unlawful settlement activity will be captured through a breach of international humanitarian law, including the Geneva convention on occupation.
The Israeli government closed the UK consulate last week in protest, forcing the it to withdraw 21 diplomats and downgrade the consulate to the status of a mission. But the Israeli punishment does not appear to have deterred the UK government. The proposed new powers also extend government reach beyond direct perpetrators of wrongdoing to those who facilitate, incite, promote or support qualifying conduct, provide it with finance, goods or technology, conceal evidence of it or benefit from it.
Banks and commercial entities could also fall within this remit as designation only requires reasonable grounds to suspect involvement. The proposed sanctions measures include asset freezes and prohibitions on making funds or economic resources available, travel bans and director disqualifications. A new urgent procedure will allow ministers to mirror designations already made by the EU, US, Canada or Australia for up to 112 days while a specific separate UK case is prepared.
The new global sanctions regime will come into force on Thursday but will need endorsement by MPs and peers within 28 days. The foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, is pushing through the measures at speed because the Israeli government has vowed to press ahead with an E1 settlement containing 1,234 homes in the West Bank – a development that many observers say would sever a contiguous, viable Palestinian state, so making the so-called two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict near impossible. The E1 bids close on 19 October but the Israel Land Authority has confirmed that the tender box will not be opened, nor the bids considered, before 19 November, which is after the Israeli election on 27 October.
The British Palestinian Project said the Israeli deferral “does not remove the need to deter commitments being made now, since bidders and their backers commit on 19 October, contracts could still be signed before a new Israeli government is formed”. The project welcomed the addition of the right to liberty and security of person in the new laws, saying it opens a route to sanctions for serious arbitrary or unlawful detention, including of Palestinian children, and of those responsible for or enabling it. Save the Children estimated in November 2023 that 10,000 Palestinian children had passed through Israeli military detention over the preceding 20 years.
A UN 2026 report on children and armed conflict verified that 981 Palestinian children were detained by Israeli forces in 2025 and 180 of them remained in administrative detention without charge or trial at the year’s end. The UK has already applied sanctions designations for restrictions on humanitarian aid in Sudan and South Sudan but this is the first time this general power is being applied as part of a new worldwide regime including Israel. Refusing permits or blocking convoys will be sufficient grounds to apply sanctions, without requiring the obstruction to constitute a formal breach of international humanitarian law – thereby lowering the threshold for action.
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