The Bishop of Gloucester has urged the Government to stop British businesses funding Israeli settlements.

The Rt Rev Rachel Treweek was responding to calls for the Government to ban trade and investment in Israel’s settlements in the West Bank.

The bishop, who sits in the House of Lords, has asked the Government to set out what steps it is taking to ensure UK businesses are not encouraging “the establishment or maintenance of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.

The UN published a list of companies it claimed had business ties to Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories in 2020. This included the British digger maker, JCB, and Opodo, an online travel agency which was previously based in London but is now headquartered in Madrid.

Israel has occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967 and there has been mounting violence in the region since the Hamas terror attack on Israel on October 7 2023, which sparked the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

The settlements, which are civilian communities built in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, are considered illegal under international law, although this is disputed by Israel.

Bishop Treweek made her comments warning against the funding and support of Israeli settlements in response to written questions submitted to the General Synod, the Church of England’s legislative body, which is convening in York.

The Rev Andrew Yates, of the diocese of Truro, asked whether bishops would consider “writing to the UK Government requesting a ban on trade with and investment in Israel’s settlements on the West Bank given the impact such investment has on Palestinian people resident there”.