UK announces sanctions on West Bank settlements prompting furious Israeli response

BREAKING: UK announces sanctions on illegal West Bank settlements, with Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband accusing Israel of turning a blind eye to the 'ethnic cleansing' of Palestinians. Israel responds by shutting the UK consulate in East Jerusalem.

The UK just sanctioned Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Israel answered within hours.

Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband stood up in Parliament and used the words ethnic cleansing, saying settler violence is forcing Palestinians off their land while the Israeli government turns a blind eye. Watch him say it here.

The sanctions ban settlement goods and go after companies and individuals fuelling settlement expansion, like the construction you can see in these pictures near Jerusalem. Miliband says it targets settlements, not Israel, and the human cost is what he pointed to, Palestinian families living behind fences on contested land. France and Canada moved with London, calling it a turning point for the two-state solution.

Israel's response was fast and furious. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called it an outrageous lie, and Israel shut the UK consulate in East Jerusalem. Britain's diplomatic post in that city is now closed, and three Western allies have formally broken with Israeli policy in the West Bank.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.