Updated

Britain's foreign secretary announced sanctions and a trade ban on Israeli settlement goods in the occupied West Bank, accusing settlers of carrying out the 'ethnic cleansing' of Palestinians. Israel reacted furiously, closing the UK consulate in East Jerusalem, with officials and commentators describing British-Israeli relations as being at their lowest ebb in decades. Former PM Ehud Olmert publicly backed the UK move, denouncing extremist settlers as 'murderous criminal terrorists,' while UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband rejected claims from the chief rabbi that the sanctions would endanger British Jews. The move has drawn mixed reactions: Palestinian date farmers in the West Bank broadly welcomed the ban on settlement goods, while Israel's government called it a 'big mistake.' The BBC also reported from Khan al-Ahmar, a Palestinian community living under Israeli demolition orders in the E1 area near the settlement of Maale Adumim, illustrating the on-the-ground stakes. The US response to the UK sanctions has been notably muted, which analysts say may reflect simmering frustration between Washington and London over Middle East policy.