Justice & Peace Scotland is endorsing the campaign after witnessing first-hand the impact of settlement expansion on Palestinian lives
Scots campaigners have joined with more than 80 civil society organisations worldwide to launch a call for governments to ban all trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.
Justice & Peace Scotland is backing the Stop Trade With Settlements campaign, which has just released a report detailing into the scale of the settlements, which are banned under international law but which have increased by 180% in the past five years.
The Trading with Illegal Settlements report shows how foreign states and corporations sustain Israel’s prolonged occupation by trading with illegal settlements.
Israeli settlements are communities built by Israel on land in the West Bank occupied by Israel since 1967: as is enshrined in the enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention, no occupying power can transfer members of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
Settlement towns are built on confiscated Palestinian land and are maintained through a system of checkpoints, walls and military control. Settlements not only displace Palestinian families and restrict their freedom of movement but also seize vital resources such as water and farmland.
Their growth is fragmenting the West Bank, undermining the possibility of a viable and independent Palestinian state.
The campaign targets settlement trade specifically because Israel’s escalating expansion in the West Bank is devastating Palestinian livelihoods and deepening the systematic injustice. Ending trade with settlements is a necessary step to uphold human rights, protect Palestinian livelihoods, halt settlement expansion and bring an end to the unlawful occupation.
In the past five years, Israel has expanded settlements by more than 180%, approving over 30,000 new housing units across the West Bank and in East Jerusalem. In May 2025 the Israeli government announced plans for 22 new settlements, many deep inside Palestinian territory further cutting off movement for non-Israelis around the West Bank.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), in its July 2024 advisory opinion, made clear that governments allowing trade with Israeli settlements are breaching their obligations under international law. By sustaining the settlement economy through trade, investment, and services, states and companies are complicit in entrenching Israel’s illegal occupation and the dispossession of Palestinians.
The Stop Trade With Settlements campaign and report call on governments in the UK, EU and beyond to ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements, and demand that international corporations and financial institutions end all services, trade and investment ties with the settlement economy.
Justice & Peace Scotland, an agency of the Catholic Church in Scotland campaigning for international peace, human rights and social justice, is endorsing the campaign after witnessing first-hand the impact of settlement expansion on Palestinian lives when Justice & Peace Scotland engagement officer, Anne-Marie Clements (pictured above), visited the region earlier this year.
She said: “What about the West Bank? That was the question put to me again and again during my visit. In Bethlehem, Aboud, Taybeh and Ramallah, Palestinians told me of land confiscation, settler violence, home demolitions, military checkpoints and the denial of water: all daily realities of the occupation that make life unbearable.
“The Stop Trade With Settlements campaign shines a light on how the illegal settlements, an integral part of the occupation, are sustained through trade. Ending this trade is not just a political necessity but a moral imperative. We cannot allow international companies and governments to profit from occupation, dispossession and human suffering.
“One story I heard and experienced firsthand is that of Daoud Nassar and his family at the Tent of Nations farm near Bethlehem. Their land, owned by the family for over a century, is now surrounded on all sides by expanding Israeli settlements.
“The Nassars have endured repeated settler violence, including direct attacks on family members, the burning and uprooting of crops, and ongoing intimidation. Yet despite these assaults, they continue to replant, farm and harvest their land. Their perseverance embodies the resilience of Palestinians determined to remain in their land and underscores why international complicity in sustaining the settlement economy must end.”
