A joint probe by Al Jazeera and Middle East Eye has uncovered that the UK government has issued a total of £10.7 million (equivalent to $14.4 million) in public procurement contracts to multiple companies with documented links to illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, a development that comes weeks after Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband formally unveiled strict, cross-government sanctions targeting settlement activity during a parliamentary address on 8 September.
During his September speech, Miliband delivered a stark public warning to entities involved in settlement operations, stating explicitly: “To those who finance or facilitate illegal settlements, let me say this: you will face the full force of UK sanctions. Settlements are illegal.” Yet behind the scenes, government insiders confirm the full sanctions package has not yet been enacted, with a projected implementation timeline stretching up to nine months from the initial announcement.
In the interim window between the public policy pledge and the rules coming into effect, public procurement approvals have already gone out to firms named on the United Nations official database of entities engaged in settlement-related activities. Two contracts totaling £87,900 ($118,000) were granted to Motorola Solutions and its local subsidiaries to supply communications technology for UK police forces. The UN has long flagged Motorola Solutions for its settlement ties, with multiple independent verifications confirming Israeli security forces deploy the company’s surveillance and communications hardware across security infrastructure in the occupied West Bank.
The largest chunk of the awarded funding, roughly £10.4 million ($14.5 million) spread across 14 separate contracts, went to three subsidiaries of global construction materials giant Heidelberg Materials for road maintenance and resurfacing projects across England. The parent company’s Israeli arm, Hanson Israel, owns and operates the controversial Nahal Raba quarry in the West Bank, a site built entirely on land expropriated from adjacent Palestinian villages.
Two smaller additional contracts were also issued in this period: an £84,000 ($113,000) award to Thomas & Adamson International Limited, a subsidiary of French engineering firm Egis, which the UN has listed for providing core utility and operational services that sustain illegal settlements, a designation Egis has formally disputed; and a £98,000 ($131,000) contract to Breas Medical, a firm owned by Chinese conglomerate Fosun International that also appears on the UN’s settlement activity registry.
Internal government tensions over the shape of the upcoming sanctions regime have also come to light, per anonymous senior UK officials who spoke to Middle East Eye on condition of anonymity last month. Insiders note that even if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu leaves office, the current UK administration remains committed to rolling out the full set of sanctions, including restrictions on firms that support settlement construction and real estate expansion. But multiple cross-party sources from government and the ruling Labour Party have raised alarms that a cohort of civil servants are erecting administrative “blockages” in an explicit attempt to weaken the final sanctions framework. Leaks from inside the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office confirm some officials are pushing to narrow the sanctions scope to target only Israeli firms tied to settlements, excluding complicit British companies entirely. These same officials have also proposed carve-outs for any firms that operate primarily within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, even if they run secondary operations in occupied Palestinian territory. If adopted, these revisions would drastically curtail the reach of Miliband’s original announcement, limiting sanctions only to entities whose core business is conducted exclusively inside illegal West Bank settlements.
Despite the internal pushback, sources close to the Foreign Secretary confirm Miliband is unwavering in his commitment to implement the full, unwatered-down sanctions package as initially outlined. When fully enacted, the rules will mandate all UK banks, pension funds and asset managers to divest holdings in companies operating in illegal settlements, and bar all British financial institutions from issuing mortgages, insurance policies or any other financial products that directly support settlement expansion.
Requests for comment submitted to the UK Cabinet Office regarding the timing of the public contracts and the ongoing internal disputes over sanctions implementation have not received a response at the time of publication.