Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department is considering further sanctions in response to settler violence in the Occupied West Bank.

In response to the persistent cycle of serious violence undertaken by extremist Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, the former Foreign Secretary announced three sanctions packages targeting individuals, outposts and organisations. This included, on 10 June, acting alongside Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway, to impose UK sanctions on Israeli government ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, in their personal capacity, in response to their repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities.

Imposing sanctions is one response among other diplomatic tools, and we will continue to consider a range of approaches to achieve our foreign policy objectives globally. However, it is not appropriate to speculate on future designations as to do so could reduce their impact.