Israel ordered British soldiers monitoring settler violence to leave the West Bank after London imposed sanctions targeting illegal Israeli settlements.

Key Takeaways

• Israel ordered a British military team in Ramallah to leave within seven days after Britain imposed trade sanctions targeting illegal settlements.
• The British Support Team had increasingly documented settler violence and provided information to London and Washington through the US Security Coordinator.
• British officials told The Telegraph that Israel had intercepted the team’s communications and may have been seeking a pretext to remove it.

British Military Team Ordered Out

Israel has ordered British soldiers monitoring escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank to leave, just as their mission was due to expand significantly, The Telegraph reported on Friday.

According to the report, the British Support Team, or BST, consists of around 10 military personnel based in Ramallah. Its primary role has been advising and helping train Palestinian Authority security forces operating in parts of the occupied West Bank.

In recent years, however, the unit had increasingly become an important source of information for Britain and the United States regarding Israeli settler attacks and conditions on the ground.

The team was reportedly preparing to quadruple in size, with about 30 former military and police contractors expected to join it.

Instead, Israel ordered the team to leave within seven days as part of its retaliation for British-led sanctions targeting illegal Israeli Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

A smaller British military and diplomatic contingent supporting the Gaza ceasefire from an international headquarters in Kiryat Gat was also ordered to leave.

Israel expels British soldiers monitoring settler violence in occupied West Bank
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Israel has ordered a team of British military personnel monitoring settler violence in the occupied West Bank to leave the country, just as the team was preparing to expand its mission fourfold.… pic.twitter.com/z1JFPwiiSE

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) September 11, 2026

‘Eyes and Ears’ on Settler Violence

The Telegraph described the British unit as increasingly serving as the West’s “eyes and ears” in the occupied West Bank.

The team submitted detailed information on settler violence to officials in London and Washington through the US Security Coordinator, or USSC, which operates from Jerusalem.

“The BST provides the best information on what is going in the West Bank in a security sense to the international community,” a British Ministry of Defense source told the newspaper. “Closing it down is an absolute gift to the Israelis because it closes the eyes and ears of what’s going on there.”

British military personnel could move through the occupied West Bank more easily than their US counterparts because they operated under less restrictive security protocols, including not always being required to carry weapons.

The information they gathered was increasingly being passed to US officials in Jerusalem, partly in an attempt to coordinate pressure on the Israeli military to restrain settler violence.

Israel Accused of Spying on British Team

British officials also told The Telegraph that Israeli authorities had been spying on the soldiers and intercepting their communications. Whitehall sources said they believed Israel had been looking for an opportunity to remove the team.

“The Israelis listen to everything, particularly the reports collated and coming out of the team about settler violence and conditions in the West Bank,” one official said. “It’s not surprising they’re being told to leave.”

Last December, Israel was accused of conducting widespread surveillance against allied officers based at the international headquarters in Kiryat Gat. The Israeli military dismissed those allegations at the time as “absurd.”

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Settler Attacks Continue

The expulsion comes amid continuing illegal settler attacks across the occupied West Bank.

The Telegraph said its reporters had witnessed multiple attacks in recent weeks, including in Taybeh, a predominantly Christian Palestinian town, where a Bedouin family was reportedly trapped for more than an hour.

In nearby Qusra, another Palestinian family was besieged for days by settlers.

Both areas had been declared closed military zones after months of attacks, but settler violence continued despite the Israeli military orders.

Palestinian towns and villages are also increasingly surrounded by illegal settlement outposts.

The newspaper reported that statements from Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, commander of Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, describing some attacks as “Jewish terrorism” came amid growing US pressure on Israel to stop the violence.

British Consulate Also Targeted

Israel also ordered the British consulate in occupied East Jerusalem to close within a month in retaliation for London’s sanctions.

The consulate serves as Britain’s principal diplomatic mission dealing with the Palestinians and channels significant amounts of humanitarian and development aid into the occupied Palestinian territory.

Its closure, together with the removal of the British military team, could significantly reduce the ability of Britain and the US to monitor developments on the ground, according to The Telegraph.

The dispute has reportedly pushed UK-Israel relations to their lowest point in decades.

Balfour’s Blank Cheque Has Bounced: Britain Turns against Israel’s Occupation

Fears of Wider West Bank Operation

The expulsions come amid indications that Israel may be preparing a major operation in the occupied West Bank ahead of Israeli elections scheduled for October 27.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has sharply escalated rhetoric against Palestinian Authority security forces, which cooperate extensively with Israeli forces under existing security coordination arrangements.

On Monday, Katz said that Israeli “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF to prepare to launch an all-out war against senior officials and apparatuses of the authority and the bodies associated with them (…) in order to quickly bring about their complete defeat.”

Katz has portrayed Palestinian Authority security forces as a potential future military threat to Israel and raised the possibility that they could launch an October 7-style attack.

Israeli right-wing think tanks linked to the security establishment have advanced similar arguments.

A study published in July by the Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs outlined what it called a “turning the guns” scenario, warning that armed Palestinian security forces could eventually turn against Israel.

(PC, The Telegraph)