UK considered suspending trade agreement with Israel over Gaza and West Bank actions

The UK considered pausing its trade agreement with Israel, having undertaken an impact assessment on suspension last summer.

The Department for Business and Trade last August undertook an impact assessment on suspending the UK-Israel Trade Partnership Agreement, the 2019 post-Brexit continuity arrangement through which Israeli imports get preferential tax treatment and mostly enter the UK tariff-free.

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Impact assessments examine things like the economic and social effects of changes and are understood to be frequently undertaken on trade policy.

It's also understood the assessment was undertaken as one of the UK's responses to the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

In May last year, the government suspended free trade deal talks with Israel.

It came after the then foreign secretary, David Lammy, described comments by the Israeli defence minister on "cleansing" Gaza and "destroying what's left" as "repellent" and "monstrous".

But the UK-Israel trade agreement remains in force.

No official explanation was given as to why, but the trade minister at the time, Chris Bryant, said in the Commons in October that "exports to Israel support thousands of jobs in the UK".

Suspending preferential trade treatment "risks unpredictable consequences and significant economic disruption for British businesses", he added in response to a written question.

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MPs and the public were not informed of the impact assessment, and the government has not shared what the impact assessment said.

When asked about the status of the agreement in parliament, the government did not reveal it was considering suspension.

It was only in response to a freedom of information request from UK-based campaign group Global Justice Now that the Department for Business and Trade this month revealed it had launched an assessment just under a year ago.

The department withheld information on the scope of the assessment, the timeline of when it was commissioned and completed and details of any decisions made based on it.

Why August 2025?

At the time the assessment was undertaken, last August, famine was declared in Gaza.

The European Union was under pressure to suspend parts of the EU-Israel Association Agreement and, the following month, proposed suspending trade concessions.

It was more than a year on from the International Court of Justice (ICJ)'s advisory opinion, which said states must prevent any actions or trade that maintain or aid Israel's settlement policy in occupied Palestinian territories.

Israel's President Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to the opinion: "The Jewish people are not occupiers in their own land, including in our eternal capital, Jerusalem, nor in Judea and Samaria, our historical homeland."

It was not until October 2025 that the latest ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas took effect.

(c) Sky News 2026: UK considered suspending trade agreement with Israel over Gaza and West Bank actions