A new law that will fine Israelis who promote boycotts of Israel and prevent foreign citizens who do so from entering the country will be brought to the Knesset next week.

British Quakers are considering "all options" after a debate on boycotting Israeli settlement goods.

Marigold Bentley, assistant general secretary of Quaker Peace and Social Witness said all boycotts and campaigns were currently being considered.

Quakers in Ramallah have called for the organisation to commit to boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, at the national "Meeting for Sufferings" last week with 150 British Quaker representatives.

Ms Bentley said: "We have discussed sanctions in the past, in the cases of Iraq and Zimbabwe; we are a peace movement.

British singer Bryan Ferry is to perform in Israel next month.

The former Roxy Music frontman will sing solo at a Tel Aviv venue in April, in the same week that teenage star Justin Bieber takes to the stage in the city.

The show will take place almost exactly four years after Mr Ferry was forced to apologise for describing Nazi parades and art as “amazing” and “really beautiful” in an interview with a German newspaper.

His Jewish manager Steven Howard later said of the controversy that Mr ferry did not “have a drop of antisemitic or racist blood in his body”.

Film director Ken Loach has called for Britons to give "unremitting support to the Palestinian struggle".

Speaking at a special screening of his 2006 film The Wind That Shakes The Barley, in aid of Palestinian charity Camden Abu Dis on Monday night, he called for a total boycott of Israel.

He said: "Please, I beg you, support the sanctions. The contempt for international law that Israel is showing is not acceptable.

"The politicians won't do anything about it. It's now for civil society to take action by boycotting Israeli goods and academics."

The East London council of Tower Hamlets has voted to "do everything in its power" to support a boycott of "the pariah state" of Israel.

Councillors also called for a review of the borough's £15 million contract with multinational Veolia for waste collection because of the company's work in Israel.

But a council spokesman said that any decision to cut ties with Veolia would rest with Mayor Lutfur Rahman or his cabinet.

The original motion, proposed by Respect councillors Harun Miah and Fozol Miah, had urged the council to "terminate" all contracts with Veolia.

The former South African president who engineered the end of apartheid has said in London that boycotts of Israel would be ineffective.

Before addressing the Anne Frank Trust Holocaust Memorial Day lunch at the Hilton Park Lane, F W de Klerk recalled that "boycotts in South Africa kept us on our toes but on balance, they delayed change, delayed reform. What happens when a country is boycotted is that people suffer as a result. People say: 'Those who boycott us are our enemies.'

Pro-Palestinian campaigners have stepped up calls for author Ian McEwan to boycott an awards ceremony in Jerusalem at which he is to be honoured next month.

Despite the fact that Mr McEwan has already responded to a letter from British Writers in Support of Palestine, published in the Guardian, members of the group have sent a second letter demanding he reject the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society.