The British Consulate in eastern Jerusalem has 30 days from Tuesday to close, while diplomats assigned there will lose their accreditation, an Israeli official told JNS on Wednesday.
British officials at the U.S.-led International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat were told to halt their operations immediately, the official said, adding that the same order was issued to the British Support Team, which trains Palestinian Authority police forces in the Samaria city of Ramallah.
Both contingents must depart within seven days, according to the Israeli official.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Tuesday evening unveiled several countermeasures in response to British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announcing earlier in the day an import ban on goods made in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.
In addition to closing the consulate and expelling British officials from Kiryat Gat and Ramallah, Jerusalem also decided to deny entry to 12 British elected representatives and other British nationals involved in antisemitic or anti-Israel activity, said Sa’ar.
“A boycott of goods from Judea and Samaria is a despicable practice that harms hard-working, law-abiding citizens. The Labour Government has decided to employ this practice of boycotts and BDS only against the Jewish state,” he continued, referencing the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
Sa’ar added that the Israeli public overwhelmingly supports the Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria and just as overwhelmingly opposes the creation of a Palestinian state in its heartland. “This is something that the Labour government is attempting, through measures that are doomed to fail, to force upon Israel. It will not work,” he said.
Miliband told Sky News on Wednesday that Jerusalem’s decision to close the British Consulate would be “damaging,” but said the government had weighed the costs and benefits before announcing the measure.
“I’d prefer that Israel hadn’t announced what it did, but overall, I strongly believe that what we did along with other international allies was absolutely the right thing to do,” Miliband said in the interview.
U.K. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis on Tuesday called Miliband’s announcement “truly a dark day for British Jews,” saying the move amounted to “little more than political flag-bearing for mendacious anti-Israel rhetoric.”
Asked by Sky News about the criticism, Miliband responded: “I’m a proud British Jew and I don’t agree with the chief rabbi. I have great respect for the chief rabbi, but I don’t agree with him.”
As of Jan. 1, 2026, 529,704 Jews lived in Judea and Samaria, amounting to approximately 5.28% of the Jewish state’s total population.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has led an unprecedented drive to expand Jerusalem’s control of Judea and Samaria, having approved tens of thousands of homes and dozens of new communities in the past three-and-a-half years.
Nearly 70% of Israeli citizens want Jerusalem to extend its full legal sovereignty to Judea and Samaria, according to a 2025 survey.
Fifty-eight percent of Israeli Jews believe that communities in Judea and Samaria contribute to the security of the country, according to a survey the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) published on March 11, 2025.
Palestinian terrorists targeted Israeli civilians in Judea and Samaria at least 5,051 times in 2025, according to figures published by the Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria) NGO.
Twenty-four Israelis were murdered in Judea and Samaria in 2025, and more than 400 others were wounded, per the NGO’s annual report.
The data, which were cross-checked against official data from the Jewish state’s security agencies, included 3,299 instances of rock-throwing, 458 attacks with fire bombs, 655 attempts to blind drivers with laser pointers, 286 attacks involving explosive charges and 19 involving firearms.
