Israel expels British soldiers tracking settler violence

Israel has ordered British soldiers tracking settler violence in the West Bank to leave the country just as they were about to expand their mission, The Telegraph can reveal. The team’s primary role is to advise and help train Palestinian Authority (PA) security forces, which provide policing and security for parts of the West Bank under the Oslo Accords. But in recent years they have increasingly become the West’s “eyes and ears” in the occupied territory, sending back detailed reports of escalating settler violence to both London and Washington, via the office of the United States Security Coordinator (USSC). The British Support Team (BST), a group of about 10 military staff based in Ramallah, was set to quadruple in size in the coming weeks. But it was ordered to leave as part of Israel’s retaliation for British-led trade sanctions on West Bank settlements . The team was given seven days to evacuate, along with a small British military and diplomatic contingent helping support the Gaza ceasefire at the international headquarters in Kiryat Gat . Whitehall sources told The Telegraph that Israel had been spying on the British soldiers and that they believed Israel had been looking for a reason to kick them out. The team routinely had their communications intercepted by Israeli operatives, officials said. “The Israelis listen to everything, particularly the reports collated and coming out of the team about settler violence and conditions in the West Bank,” said one official. “It’s not surprising they’re being told to leave.” The Israeli government has been approached for comment. Last December, Israel was accused of conducting widespread surveillance of allied officers at the Kiryat Gat Gaza headquarters, allegations that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rejected as “absurd”. Led by a British Army brigadier, the BST in Ramallah acted as a field office for the Jerusalem-based USSC, which was commanded by Lt Gen Sean Salene of the US Marine Corps. British military staff are able to move around the West Bank more easily than the Americans because of lighter force protection rules, such as not always being required to carry weapons. The team was increasingly feeding information to US counterparts in Jerusalem about settler violence, with the aim of co-ordinating with the IDF to prevent it. It is understood that comments by Maj Gen Avi Bluth, the IDF’s commander of Israeli troops in the West Bank, in which he spoke of “Jewish terrorism”, came amid US pressure to end the violence. The Telegraph has witnessed a series of Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank in recent weeks. In Taybeh, the last mainly Christian town in the West Bank , a local Bedouin family was pinned down for more than an hour. In nearby Qusra, a family was besieged by violent settlers for days. The towns had been declared a “closed military zone” after months of settler attacks. But despite this IDF order, attacks have continued unabated and they are increasingly surrounded by illegal outposts built by Israeli settlers. The BST was vital for Britain and the US to know detailed information about such attacks. “The BST provides the best information on what is going in the West Bank in a security sense to the international community,” said a Ministry of Defence (MoD) source. “Closing it down is an absolute gift to the Israelis because it closes the eyes and ears of what’s going on there.” The BST was preparing to be joined by about 30 former military and police contractors when Tuesday’s order to shut down was announced. In response to Britain’s sanctions against West Bank settlements, Israel also ordered the British consulate in East Jerusalem to close within a month. The Jerusalem consulate is the gateway for significant amounts of aid funding in the Palestinian territories, and acts as a de facto embassy to the PA, the body that Britain, along with much of the international community, hopes will one day lead an independent Palestinian state. The diplomatic spat coincided with indications that Israel could be preparing a significant security operation in the West Bank before elections at the end of October. Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, has made extraordinary criticisms of the PA security forces. He described them as a threat to Israel and as a potential terror army, when in fact they work closely with the Israelis in detaining terrorists in the West Bank. The USSC helps facilitate this security relationship between the PA and the Israelis to crack down on extremism. Mr Katz raised the prospect of a security operation against the PA security forces that Britain and others have helped train, suggesting that they would launch an Oct 7-style terrorist attack against civilians in Israeli cities, some of which, such as Jerusalem, are just across the green line. On Monday, Mr Katz said: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF to prepare to launch an all-out war against senior officials and apparatuses of the authority and the bodies associated with them, and against all terrorist infrastructures in Judea and Samaria – in order to quickly bring about their complete defeat.” Mr Netanyahu publicly describes the PA as terrorist supporters, pointing to issues such as stipends for the families of Palestinian terrorists – so-called “pay to slay” – a practice that the PA says it has ended but which Israel says continues. Right-of-centre Israeli think tanks with links to the security services have also begun talking of the PA security forces as a potential direct threat to Israelis. It has led some commentators to suggest they are preparing the ground politically for an operation against the PA, potentially in the run-up to the Israeli general election on Oct 27. A study published in July by the Jerusalem Centre for Security and Foreign Affairs mapped out a “turning the guns” (on Israel) scenario, seeking to highlight what it characterised as the danger of a large armed Palestinian force close to Israel’s population centres. As well as providing training to Palestinian law enforcement, the USSC helps facilitate the security relationship between the PA and the Israelis, a discreet partnership that is not widely known among the Israeli public. With the closure of the BST and the British consulate, London and Washington are likely to have a less accurate picture of what is taking place on the ground in the West Bank. The Telegraph understands that some in the Foreign Office believe there might be a chance to prevent the closure of the consulate, or to get it reopened within months under a different Israeli government. The sanctions have brought Britain’s relationship with Israel to its lowest point since the birth of the country in 1948. The MoD was approached for comment.