MAP warns UK sanctions on far-right groups “barely move the dial on ending Israeli apartheid in the West Bank"

Rohan Talbot, Director of Advocacy and Campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, said: "These new sanctions are necessary but wholly insufficient. They will barely move the dial on ending Israeli annexation and apartheid in the West Bank and fall well below the Government’s obligations to uphold international law.

"The Government must urgently go further and end the impunity with which Israel is expanding illegal settlements, entrenching its occupation, and violently pushing Palestinian communities off their land.

"Every day, MAP's mobile clinics reach communities cut off from healthcare by settlements, checkpoints, and movement restrictions and apartheid policies which deny them access to services. We see the consequences first-hand: livelihoods destroyed, people injured and killed in violent attacks, and patients travelling hours for basic treatment while life-saving care remains out of reach.

"The government must immediately end trade with illegal settlements. Otherwise, this will look less like a turning point and more like another attempt to look the other way while the bulldozers keep moving.”

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Rohan Talbot, Director of Advocacy and Campaigns at Medical Aid for Palestinians, is available for interview on request. Please contact the press office to arrange at: [email protected] or +44 (0) 203 869 1310

• Two years ago, the ICJ was unequivocal in its determination that third states such as the UK are “obligated not to provide aid or assistance to this illegal situation”, and its settlements must be dismantled, and that states such as the UK are obligated not to provide any aid or assistance to this illegality.
• MAP is also urging the UK Government to suspend the UK-Israel Trade and Partnership Agreement.

Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) works for a future where every Palestinian has access to a comprehensive, effective and locally-led system of healthcare, and the full realisation of their rights to health and dignity. We work in the occupied Palestinian territory and in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon.