Hamas has welcomed Britain’s newly announced sanctions against Israel as “important steps in the right direction” while still insisting they are “insufficient” and pressing for more to be done.
The response from the terror group in Gaza comes after UK foreign secretary Ed Miliband on Tuesday presented what he said was a “reset” of relations with Israel.
Speaking in the Commons, he told MPs: “There is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists.”
The UK’s set of measures have been presented as targeting the building of settlements in the West Bank.
Canada and France among other countries also announced sanctions on Tuesday, adding up to 12 states in total.
Now a senior member of Hamas’s political bureau, Dr Basem Naim, has responded to the intervention by Britain and other countries.
The former minister of health said: “The United Kingdom and other European countries have imposed sanctions on goods imported from settlements in the occupied West Bank, and the British Foreign Secretary's use of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ to describe the crimes committed by settlers are important steps in the right direction, but they are insufficient.”
Naim urged the measures to be put into force as soon as possible, saying: “Immediate implementation of the relevant international decisions is required.”
The welcome by Hamas echoes the response of the Iranian regime, where state propaganda outlets have greeted the sanctions as a step towards “the end of Israel”.
The sanctions by Britain will ban goods from what are said to be illegal settlements in the West Bank.
The measures will also be imposed against businesses and individuals whose services enable or support settlement expansion.
Critics have warned that the sanctions may risk affecting trade with Israel as a whole, while Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis has raised concern that the measures may inflame antisemitism in Britain, a claim with which Miliband has said he disagrees.
Responding to the sanctions, Israel has closed the UK consulate in Jerusalem, and banned 11 British MPs, including Jeremy Corbyn, Diane Abbott and all five members of the Green Party.
The British government is now facing claims that it ignored the advice of its own officials who had cautioned that sanctions against Israeli settlements would be “unworkable”.
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