UK set to sanction 2 Israeli ministers over Gaza comments, reports say
The Times reports that Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, finance minister, will have their assets frozen and travel bans imposed.
Canada, Australia and New Zealand have already imposed sanctions on the two ministers.
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu relies on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir to maintain his fragile coalition government.
Smotrich approved the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. He also campaigned against allowing humanitarian aid into Gaza.
'Gaza will be entirely destroyed,' he said last month, adding that Palestinians will 'leave in great numbers to third countries'.
Ben-Gvir has advocated for the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, and said that the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem should be replaced with a synagogue.
READ MORE: Freedom Flotilla Coalition gives update on Madleen crew detained by Israel
'Yesterday, minister
'There is no need to bring in aid [to Gaza]. They have enough,' he said earlier this year.
Ben-Gvir also said that the decision to resume aid deliveries was a 'serious and grave mistake'.
According to the newspaper the UK is now considering imposing sanctions over their comments, which Foreign Secretary David Lammy described as 'monstrous'.
'We are now entering a dark new phase in this conflict,' Lammy told the House of Commons last month.
'Netanyahu's government is planning to drive Gazans from their homes into a corner of the strip to the south and permit them a fraction of the aid that they need.
"[Bezalel] Smotrich even spoke of Israeli forces cleansing Gaza, destroying what's left of residents, Palestinians being relocated, he said, to third countries.'
Scottish MSP Ross Greer said of the reports: 'Sanctioning two individual ministers for their incitement to genocide is good and long overdue, but how does the UK Government square that with continuing to sell arms to Israel and failing to sanction Netanyahu himself?'
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