Israel’s Foreign Minister, Gideon Saar, has announced that the diplomatic accreditation of Dutch officials based in the occupied West Bank will be revoked after the Netherlands began enforcing restrictions on goods originating from Israeli settlements.
Saar said in a post on his official X account on Sunday that the Dutch diplomats had seven days to return the Israeli-issued diplomatic documents.
He added that after the seven-day period, their diplomatic privileges and immunities granted by Israel would expire.
According to Saar, the decision followed the Dutch government’s enforcement of a ban on goods imported from Israeli settlements in the Golan Heights, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Israel captured the territories during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and has maintained control over them since then. Israeli settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal under international law.
Dutch authorities announced earlier this month that they would begin enforcing the ban on settlement goods from September 22. The restriction applies to both commercial shipments and goods carried in personal luggage.
Dutch and Israeli media have reported that passengers arriving from Israel at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport had their luggage searched for goods covered by the ban.
The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a supporter of Israeli settlers, also commented on the issue on X, saying some Dutch visitors to his church were checking their souvenirs before returning home because of the restrictions.
“Judea and Samaria,” the biblical term for the West Bank, is also used by the Israeli government.
The Dutch measures followed coordinated action by 12 Western countries, including Britain and France, which introduced sanctions on goods from Israeli settlements earlier this month.
Excluding East Jerusalem, about 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, which is home to an estimated three million Palestinians.
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