Israeli “terrorists” are conducting ethnic cleansing in the West Bank with the tacit backing of the government, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband has said, as he announced sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements alongside France and Canada, according to the Guardian.

In what the Guardian described as the strongest condemnation ever issued by the UK government, Miliband said the government would now take the official position that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was unlawful in its entirety. He said such acknowledgment was “the least the people who face such suffering deserve. And it should be the prelude to justice.”

The measures include an import ban on goods from illegal settlements in the occupied territories and a comprehensive sanctions regime against providing services such as construction or financing for Israeli settlements. There will also be a ban on advertising illegal settlement properties in the UK.

Further steps include personal sanctions against key individuals accused of promoting settler violence, and a new ban for arms licences and other exports that “materially contribute to the occupation.” The Guardian reported the UK reasserted its support for Palestinian rights and a two-state solution.

The move has drawn criticism. Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Britain would be “on the wrong side of history” if it went ahead with the plans, warning that the decision would prove “a grave miscalculation.” He referred to the settlements as being located in “Judea and Samaria.”

However, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert backed Miliband’s announcement, describing the UK sanctions as an “unavoidable” result of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and saying “sanctions are directed against the terrorists not against Israel,” according to the Guardian.

The Guardian also reported that the Liberal Democrats had been granted a Commons urgent question on separate Argentinian threats to the Falkland Islands, with a Foreign Office minister due to respond.