UK accuses Israeli ‘terrorists’ of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing. Ed Miliband announces sanctions on trade with settlements as PM says in the Guardian it is time to act

In his statement to parliament, Miliband said the UK government would enact:

• An import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories and a new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.

• A comprehensive sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements and a ban on advertising them in the UK.

• Personal sanctions against key individuals accused of promoting settler violence.

• A new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation”.
  

  

  Palestinian landowners, journalists and protesters run from teargas fired by Israeli security forces blocking a road leading to a newly built Israeli settlement near Dura in the West Bank in June. Photograph: Hazem Bader/AFP/Getty Images

 Pippa Crerar, Jessica Elgot and Kiran Stacey

Tue 8 Sep 2026

Settler terrorists supported by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government are committing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Ed Miliband has said, in the UK’s starkest condemnation since the foundation of the Israeli state.

Andy Burnham, the prime minister, said he would “not stand by” as horrific suffering continued, writing in the Guardian that for too long the UK had been hesitant to act, “fearful of being accused of being anti-Israel”.

In the Commons, the foreign secretary said the government would now take the official position that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was unlawful in its entirety, as he announced sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements.

The dramatic shift in the UK’s position comes after a summer of intense diplomacy against a backdrop of increasing settler violence in the West Bank, which has resulted in 12 nations – including France and Canada – announcing they would impose sanctions.

In a joint statement Burnham, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney said: “The time has come to take further action to uphold our commitment to protect the two-state solution, our interests and to stand up for our values, before it is too late.”

In response, the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, announced the closure of the UK consulate in Jerusalem and that 12 British MPs and activists – including Jeremy Corbyn and Labour MP Diane Abbott – would be banned from entering Israel.... READ MORE  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/sep/08/uk-accuses-israeli-terrorists-ethnic-cleansing-west-bank-government-backing  

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United Nations: For 80 years, the UN has been saving lives & helping people by: 🇺🇳 feeding the hungry 🇺🇳 helping those forced to flee 🇺🇳 vaccinating children 🇺🇳 promoting human rights 🇺🇳 protecting the planet 🇺🇳 responding to humanitarian crises & more....

United Nations

@UN

 

For 80 years, the UN has been saving lives & helping people by: 

🇺🇳 feeding the hungry 

🇺🇳 helping those forced to flee 

🇺🇳 vaccinating children 

🇺🇳 promoting human rights 

🇺🇳 protecting the planet 

🇺🇳 responding to humanitarian crises & more.  

 

https://un.org/en/UN80

 

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The United Nations at 80

Building our future together

https://www.un.org/en/UN80#more 

Eleanor ROOSEVELT of the United States holds a poster of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Lake Success, NY, November 1949.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 217A at its 3rd session in Paris on 10 December 1948. From 1946-1948 delegates to the United Nations discussed and drafted an international declaration on the subject of human rights that has become a standard of principles for human rights.

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• A Historical Record of the Drafting Process
• Women who shaped the Universal Declaration
• More Multilateral Agreements from the decade 1946-1955

 

 

 

 17 Goals to Transform Our World

The Sustainable Development Goals are a call for action by all countries – poor, rich and middle-income – to promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and address a range of social needs including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change and environmental protection.... READ MORE  https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/

"As the Sept. 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows have said numerous times, war will not end terrorism or bring peace." William Lambers

William Lambers is an author who partnered with the U.N. World Food Program on the book Ending World Hunger.

On the anniversary of Sept. 11, we should save Afghanistan’s children — Opinion

• Published: Sep. 07, 2026 

Monique Nagelkerke looks over the north reflecting pool at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum in 2021. While midlifers have visceral memories of the day, more than 30% of Americans are too young to remember it. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)AP

Deora Frances Bodley, the youngest victim on Flight 93 on Sept. 11, 2001, once wrote “People ask who, what, where, when, why, how. I ask peace.” Bodley was just 20 when she died on 9/11, and left these words of wisdom.

Upon the 25th anniversary of the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, peace is the best path forward for healing. As the Sept. 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows have said numerous times, war will not end terrorism or bring peace.

Our road to peace and healing is long even 25 years after 9/11. We could save Afghanistan’s children from starvation because there is extreme hunger in that impoverished nation right now.

The tragedy of Sept. 11 claimed nearly 3,000 lives when terrorists hijacked four airplanes and rammed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Flight 93 did not reach the intended target in Washington, D.C. because the passengers, including Deora Bodley, fought back against the terrorists. The heroic passengers of Flight 93 caused the plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field. They lost their lives but saved countless others.

The 9/11 attacks led to years of warfare and tragedy in Afghanistan in... READ MORE    https://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2026/09/on-the-anniversary-of-sept-11-we-should-save-afghanistans-children-opinion.html?gift=98ec6c20-d6f6-4f67-a02e-ff6c9a81647b

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"Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Gaza was not that the world allowed it to happen. It was discovering that Gaza was only the beginning...."

Doctor, sometimes a writer. Revealing hidden stories, a voice for the unheard. Witness to humanity's darkest depths. Palestine https://hope-heal.org/  

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https://x.com/ezzingaza/status/2096672691130703996 

Dr. Ezzideen

@ezzingaza

Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Gaza was not that the world allowed it to happen. It was discovering that Gaza was only the beginning.

 

All the speeches, protests, resolutions, international laws, red lines, condemnations, and promises of “never again” have apparently taught this monster nothing.

 

This morning, Israeli strikes completely destroyed Ghandour Hospital in southern Lebanon.

 

Another hospital !! Another building once meant for healing reduced to rubble.

 

We watched hospitals in Gaza bombed, besieged, evacuated, burned and destroyed. We were told Gaza was exceptional. We were told the world was watching. International institutions issued statements. Governments expressed “concern.”

People marched through capitals demanding that there must be a line even war is not allowed to cross.

 

And now we are watching those lines disappear somewhere else.

 

Again.

We are living through a dark age in which military power and money seem capable of crushing almost everything humanity spent generations pretending was sacred: international law, hospitals, homes, places of worship, trees, memory, and human life itself.

 

And perhaps that is what terrifies me most.

 

Not only that these things are being destroyed, but that the world is being trained to watch their destruction and continue with its day.

 

A hospital becomes rubble. A neighborhood disappears. A family becomes photographs. Another condemnation is written.

 

And elsewhere, people wake up, drink their coffee, go to work, come home, and sleep.

 

I once believed that knowing what happened would be enough to make humanity afraid of repeating it.

 

Now I understand the more terrible possibility:

Human beings can know.

They can remember.

They can build museums to the dead, teach their names in schools, write “never again” above their graves; and still allow another human being to become rubble.

 

It happened.

Therefore it could happen again.

 

Perhaps the mistake was believing that “again” would look exactly like the first time.

 

If hell is a place where power can destroy human beings, homes, hospitals, memory, and life itself, while those who built laws to prevent it discover that their laws cannot make it stop, then perhaps hell does not require another world.

 

Perhaps it requires only this one,

and enough people willing to continue their day.

 

#SurvivalTestimony

 

"In Gaza, rubble is not just construction waste. It is part of a crime scene, a graveyard, and the material record of a brutal and senseless 2-year bombing campaign" Francesca Albanese

UN Special Procedures

@UN_SPExperts

 

Israel's removal of rubble in areas of #Gaza cannot become a way to erase traces of atrocity crimes, warns

@FranceskAlbs. 

 

“Gaza’s rubble contains human remains & evidence relevant to investigations of alleged international crimes, including genocide.”

 https://x.com/UN_SPExperts/status/2096916935208305031

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 https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/09/gaza-un-expert-warns-israeli-rubble-clearing-could-erase-traces-atrocity

Gaza: UN expert warns Israeli rubble-clearing could erase traces of atrocity crimes

07 September 2026

GENEVA – Large-scale removal of rubble in areas of Gaza under Israeli military control cannot become a way to erase traces of atrocity crimes and another means to entrench Israel’s illegal occupation, a UN expert said today.

“The ongoing removal, crushing and relocation of rubble in Gaza must not destroy evidence of international crimes or prevent the recovery and identification of human remains in the besieged enclave,” said Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.

“The implications are profound. Gaza’s rubble contains human remains and physical evidence relevant to the investigation of alleged international crimes, including genocide,” Albanese said.

Palestinian authorities estimate that more than 10,000 people remain buried under the debris.

With nearly 70 percent of Gaza subject to access restrictions and varying degrees of Israeli military control, Albanese warned that the process cannot be separated from the broader illegality of Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory, as determined by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its July 2024 Advisory Opinion.

In January 2024, the ICJ ordered Israel to take effective measures to prevent the destruction of and ensure the preservation of evidence relating to allegations of breaches of the Genocide Convention.

“In devastated Gaza, rubble is not just construction waste. It is part of a crime scene, a graveyard, and the material record of what happened during a brutal and senseless bombing campaign that lasted two years,” the Special Rapporteur said.

She noted that the possibility of recovering human remains in the Gaza rubble is far from theoretical. On 4 August 2026, Palestinians buried 112 members of one extended family, recovered in a 17-day operation from beneath buildings in Gaza City that were destroyed in November 2023. The remains of 41 others killed in the same strike were never located.

“It is vital that before decisions are made on displacement or crushing by the occupying army or its allies, the recovery and dignified identification of human remains, systematic documentation of sites and materials, preservation of potentially relevant evidence, and an unbroken chain of custody under independent oversight must take place,” Albanese said. She called for international criminal investigators to oversee this vital evidence gathering.

“State actors and companies involved in its removal should take note that by destroying evidence of international crimes, they could incur international criminal responsibility in connection to those crimes,” Albanese warned.

The Special Rapporteur said the concern was particularly serious given the scale and nature of the destruction in Gaza since October 2023. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, between October 2023 and October 2025, at least 92 per cent of Gaza’s housing units alongside extensive civilian infrastructure, had been destroyed or damaged. That report described the scale of destruction and displacement as “unprecedented” in modern warfare.

Albanese warned that through the use of heavy machinery – including equipment manufactured by Caterpillar, HD Hyundai, Doosan and Volvo – demolition and levelling have continued in areas under Israeli control, even after the so-called ceasefire of October 2025.

The expert received credible information from multiple sources in August 2026, exposing an operation involving deliberate and widespread removal, crushing and transport of rubble, with Israeli sources confirming discussions with Israeli companies over large-scale demolition, rubble removal and recycling.

“Any removal must happen in the context of a plan designed by Palestinians and supported by actors who have the trust of Palestinians,” Albanese said. “Destroying evidence of atrocity crimes is illegal. It is unacceptable that the reconstruction of Gaza is conditioned upon the erasure of its past and the evidence required to secure justice for its victims.”

Francesca Albanese is the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967