LONDON (Dispatches) -- The UK government has threatened to expel 27 Israeli diplomats unless Tel Aviv reverses its order to shut the British Consulate General in occupied East Al-Quds, Ynet reported.
UK Ambassador Simon Walters conveyed London’s terms to Israeli officials, saying that for every British envoy stripped of accreditation, an Israeli diplomat and their family would be expelled from London. 
Israel ordered the British consulate in occupied East Al-Quds closed by October 8 to punish London for banning goods from illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank last month.
An Israeli diplomatic source pledged further retaliation, saying “We have already demonstrated that any step taken against Israel will be met with an appropriate response, and that will continue to be the case.”
Former UK attorney general Dominic Grieve has informally advised the Foreign Office that Israel would be breaking the law by closing the mission, The Guardian reported, as the UN, most of its member states, and the UK itself all recognize East Al-Quds as occupied Palestinian territory. 
Grieve also cautioned that Palestinians would pay the heaviest price for the shutdown, losing consular services, aid oversight, and reporting from the West Bank and Gaza. 
UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband announced the sanctions on September 8, barring products of illegal settlements from entering the UK and penalizing the firms and individuals behind settlement growth, saying, “there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank – perpetrated by settler terrorists.”
France, Canada, and nine other states joined the UK in a joint call to halt expansion and reject any annexation or forced displacement of Palestinians.
An August 28 report by the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission found that settlers set 799 of the 900 fires torching Palestinian property in the occupied West Bank since early 2023, with Israeli troops setting the remaining 101.
The arson is part of a state-backed ethnic cleansing campaign that has fully or partially displaced 121 communities, emptying 46 entirely and driving out more than 6,200 Palestinians, over 3,000 of them children.
Israel’s Public Broadcaster (KAN) recorded a 63 percent jump in settler attacks in the first half of 2026, during which settlers killed six Palestinians and wounded 140.
The ban came after Israel issued tenders on August 21 for 1,234 settler units in E1, a bloc that would carve the occupied West Bank in two, sever it from occupied Al-Quds, and bury any prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state.