Britain summons envoy to protest E1 settlement project, as does Australia for IDF decision to end investigation of aid workers’ killing, while Europeans condemn Ben Gvir’s Gaza remarks
By ToI Staff
20 August 2026, 10:41 am
A sign seized by Israeli police after the protester was arrested, June 6, 2026 (Israel Police Spokesperson)
Israel is facing mounting criticism from several Western allies and the United Nations over a controversial West Bank settlement project, the military’s decision not to probe the killing of aid workers in Gaza, and recent incendiary remarks by a far-right minister.
British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires on Wednesday over the government’s decision this week to open bidding for the construction of the long-stalled E1 settlement project east of Jerusalem.
The widely condemned plan would carve up land in the West Bank that the Palestinians seek for a state.
Miliband said he told Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar that “the Israeli government must halt E1 plans immediately, retract the tender and stop all settlement expansion.”
Israel on Tuesday issued a tender for seven residential compounds containing 1,234 housing units in E1, part of some 3,400 homes approved for the area last year. The project would link Jerusalem and the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim while disrupting Palestinian territorial contiguity between Bethlehem, East Jerusalem and Ramallah.
The project had been frozen for years due to fierce international opposition, including from previous US administrations. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who championed the plan, said when it was approved last year that it “practically erases the two-state delusion.”
Sa’ar hit back at Miliband’s decision to summon the chargé d’affaires on Thursday.
In a lengthy post on X, the foreign minister said he “reject[s] outright” Miliband’s “patronizing” statement, and asserted that “the Jewish people have the right to live throughout the Land of Israel, just as the British have the right to live in London and throughout the United Kingdom.”
“The UK Government’s systematic policy of blaming only Israel while ignoring Palestinian extremism has already contributed to a massive wave of antisemitic hatred and attacks against the British Jewish community,” Sa’ar charged, saying London’s “decision to damage the relationship between our countries is deeply unfortunate.”
Germany also condemned the E1 move, saying it jeopardizes the prospect for a two-state solution.
“Our message is clear: There must be no further steps toward annexation in the West Bank,” said Sebastian Hille, spokesman for the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “No formal ones, but also no political, structural, or other measures whose impact is increasingly and obviously leading toward annexation. They run counter to a two-state solution.”
‘Difficult time’ with Australia
The diplomatic friction extended to Canberra, where Foreign Minister Penny Wong met Israeli Ambassador Hillel Newman on Thursday after summoning him over the IDF’s decision not to pursue a criminal investigation into an April 2024 strike in Gaza that killed seven World Central Kitchen workers, including Australian citizen Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom.
Wong acknowledged after the meeting that it was a “difficult time” in Australia’s relationship with Israel.
“We have an Australian humanitarian worker who was killed not on the first strike, but in the context of three separate strikes on a humanitarian convoy,” Wong told reporters in Canberra after meeting Newman.
Wong said Australia was “outraged” by the decision and had been informed only moments before it was made public on Wednesday, leaving officials unable to notify Frankcom’s family in advance.
She said Canberra still had “many unanswered questions,” including why the convoy was struck three times, and noted that Australia had repeatedly sought but not received drone footage of the attack.
The April 1, 2024, attack came after Israeli forces incorrectly assessed that Hamas operatives were traveling in the World Central Kitchen vehicles. Seven aid workers were killed. An IDF review led to the dismissal of two officers and several other top commanders.
The Military Advocate General’s office said Wednesday that although there had been failures in the assessment that Hamas operatives were in the vehicles, commanders’ decisions did not cross the threshold for criminal conduct given the suspicious signs and operational circumstances. It therefore found no reasonable suspicion warranting a Military Police investigation.
Wong said Australia did not consider the dismissals and reprimands sufficient accountability for the deaths. Newman said after meeting her that he was “very sorry” for Frankcom’s family, but did not apologize for her killing.
“One cannot attack findings of a court if the findings are not suitable to one’s political agenda,” Israel’s envoy said, adding that the finding of no criminal liability came “after two years of independent research.”
Ben Gvir remarks draw condemnation
Separately, Germany, France and the UN sharply condemned National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir over his recent call for Israel to kill scores of people in Gaza every night and his statement that some people there were “not worthy of life.”
Ben Gvir made the remarks in a recent appearance on the podcast of former Palestinian Islamic Jihad hostage Rom Braslavski.
The ultranationalist minister asserted that Israel should be carrying out frequent targeted killings in Gaza, “taking down 30 to 40 every night,” apparently referring to Hamas operatives and other enemies of Israel. He went on to say he did not mean only those posing an immediate threat, adding: “They shouldn’t live” and “They’re not even people.”
In Germany, Merz condemned what his spokesman called Ben Gvir’s “inhumane appeals,” saying they violated international law and were “unacceptable.”
German Vice Chancellor Lars Klingbeil also said the remarks “must have consequences” and that sanctions against Ben Gvir were again being discussed at the European level.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot echoed Germany’s condemnation, calling the remarks “intolerable and inhumane,” while UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described them as “appalling,” “dehumanizing” and “dangerous.”
Several European countries have called for EU-wide sanctions against the far-right lawmaker, but the proposal has failed to win the required unanimity.
Calls to blacklist Ben Gvir grew after he published a video in May of himself mocking bound activists seized by Israeli soldiers on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
France, in response to the May video, banned Ben Gvir from entering the country and called for the EU to impose bloc-wide sanctions.
Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway imposed sanctions on both Ben Gvir and Smotrich in June 2025 over accusations that they had incited extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
