Belgium bans imports from Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine

The move lands as EU foreign ministers remain deadlocked over a bloc-wide ban on illegal settlement tradeBelgium’s federal government has approved a ban on importing goods produced in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.It is the latest among a small but fast-growing group of European countries acting alone on a question still unresolved at EU level.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3EU calls on Israel to halt settlement expansion as settlers attack childrenlist 2 of 3Palestine weekly: Israel attacks children, hospitals in bloody week in Gazalist 3 of 3US seeks extradition of wealthy pro-Palestine donor from Spainend of listThe decision came at the government’s final cabinet meeting before the summer break, the Belgian News Agency (Belga) reported on Saturday.The move fulfils a commitment made last year over the scale of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and its death toll.Earlier this week, Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prevot pressed EU counterparts at a closed-doors meeting in Brussels for a bloc-wide ban, accusing the European Commission of offering ministers “a bone to chew on” rather than a genuine plan to act.Belgium’s ban arrives as both a domestic pledge fulfilled and a signal to the EU leadership.The case for tighter controls was strengthened this year by a Global Echo Litigation Center investigation, which examined more than 30,000 export documents covering thousands of Israeli agricultural shipments to Europe.Roughly one in six contained goods grown in settlements in the occupied West Bank or Golan Heights, rising to nearly one in five among shipments bound for EU countries.Investigators found exporters routinely obscured the true origin of the produce, labelling it Israeli, blending it with genuine Israeli stock, or shipping it under addresses unconnected to where it was grown.Similar moves by others in EuropeThe EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, buying close to 30 percent of its exports and accounting for nearly a third of its total trade in goods, worth 43 billion euros ($49bn) last year.