UK sanctions Israeli ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2025
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Britain, Norway, Australia, Canada and New Zealand have announced they're sanctioning two far-right Israeli ministers for inciting extremist violence by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. London said an asset freeze and travel ban would take effect immediately against Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. We have an interview with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who called the sanctions "a shocking decision on the part of countries I consider to be allies".
Also in the programme: Greenlanders' dream of international football hits reality; remarkable testimony from the men in Syria whose job it was to enforce the Assad regime of terror; and why a shortage of rice is causing such a stir in Japan.
(Photo: Itamar Ben-Gvir (left) and Bezalel Smotrich are key members of PM Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service Studios in central London. |
| 0:10.0 | I'm Tim Franks. |
| 0:11.6 | One of the big questions facing governments, particularly Western governments right now, is how, indeed weather, they can influence events in the Middle East. |
| 0:20.5 | Yes, many European countries, |
| 0:22.9 | along with others such as Canada and Australia, have expressed outrage over what's going on in Gaza |
| 0:28.4 | after the deaths and the hunger and the blockading of aid, as well as professing what they say |
| 0:34.3 | is the deep opposition that they have to Israeli settlement, expansion and |
| 0:38.2 | violence in the occupied West Bank. Well, today, Britain, along with Australia, Canada, |
| 0:43.8 | New Zealand and Norway, jointly sanctioned two ministers of the Israeli government. They are |
| 0:49.0 | the finance minister, Betzel L Smotrich, and the National Security Minister Itimar Ben-Gavir, both hard-right religious |
| 0:56.0 | nationalists. It's thought to be the first time that Britain has sanctioned members of the Israeli |
| 1:00.0 | government. The Israeli foreign minister is called the move unacceptable. The British Foreign |
| 1:04.8 | Secretary, David Lamy, explained why. Ben-Gavir and Smotrhic have been inciting violence against Palestinian people for months and months and months. |
| 1:18.1 | They have been encouraging egregious abuses of human rights. We have been raising this with the Israeli government both privately and publicly. |
| 1:29.8 | We were raising it before we came to government, and indeed the last government, raised it as an issue. |
| 1:36.5 | And alongside our partners, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Norway, today we are announcing sanctions against those individuals because we have |
| 1:48.1 | been absolutely clear. This has to stop and we stand for a two-state solution and the settler |
| 1:56.2 | violence that we've seen in the West Bank particularly is entirely unacceptable and must stop. |
| 2:04.1 | The British Foreign Secretary David Lamey, the BBC's diplomatic correspondent is James Landale. |
| 2:09.3 | First, that clip we have from David Lamy didn't mention Gaza. |
| 2:13.5 | Is today's move more about what's happening on the West Bank? |
| 2:17.1 | The British government and other allies remain concerned about what is happening in Gaza, |
... |
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