Over the past week, we held a dialogue with the British Government with the aim of preventing further deterioration in relations between the countries as a result of the closure of the Consulate. Last night, we reached understandings based on the following principles: 1. As I announced, the British Consulate in Jerusalem ended its role today. The Consul General and 19 diplomats are ending their assignments and will leave Israel. 2. The building that served as the Consulate is the property of the British Government. We have allowed the British Government to operate a task force of only seven diplomats from the building, which ceased to function as a consulate today. Their scope of activity will be very limited. 3. We agreed on the continuation of dialogue between the governments, within which both sides will be able to raise issues important to them. We believe in dialogue and will continue to believe in dialogue. Unfortunately, in recent years, no genuine dialogue has taken place with the Labour Government. This is despite good relations with Britain, reflected, among other things, in security and intelligence cooperation. Relations between Israel and Britain are important and have repeatedly proven their value also in protecting the lives and interests of British citizens. Only recently, Israel provided Britain with vital information in the RAF Fairford affair. All four measures in my statement of 8 September have been implemented. Alongside this, we reached understandings that serve Israel’s interests. In accordance with the understandings we reached, no measures will be taken against Israel as a result of the implementation of the decisions. I thank everyone who was involved in the dialogue and discussions and contributed to reaching the understandings on both sides. I cannot promise that there will not be further crises in the future. If there are, we will face them on the basis of our core principles. It is important to emphasise again that we did not initiate the current situation. We are interested in good relations with all the countries of the world. But any country that acts against Israel must know that there will be a price for doing so. It will not gain from this, but quite the opposite. Israel will no longer turn its cheek to diplomatic attacks against it.

We established a clear principle: It is not possible to act against Israel without Israel taking appropriate measures in response. In this spirit, the measures I announced on 8 September have been implemented: 1.The removal of the British representatives from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat. 2.The termination of British activity to train Palestinian Authority forces in Judea and Samaria. 3.The denial of entry to Israel of 12 British elected officials and other British citizens involved in antisemitic and anti-Israel activity, as well as those who deny our very right to exist. 4.The British Consulate in Jerusalem is ending its operations today. Accordingly, the sign of the British Consulate in Jerusalem has been removed. We did not want to reach this point, but the actions of the UK Labour Government brought us here. Their latest decision in this series was to initiate a range of far-reaching sanctions against the communities in Judea and Samaria, as well as additional sanctions on defence exports to Israel. All this was accompanied by hostile rhetoric, including false accusations against Israel, such as accusations of “ethnic cleansing.” This decision adds to a growing and escalating series of unilateral measures against Israel adopted by the Labour Government since taking office in July 2024. These measures included, among others, unilateral recognition of a virtual “Palestinian state” in September 2025; the renewal of funding to UNRWA; the suspension of licences for defence exports to Israel; the imposition of sanctions on Israeli ministers; the imposition of sanctions on Israeli individuals and entities; the suspension of negotiations on a free trade agreement; restrictions on Israel’s official participation in an international defence and security equipment exhibition in Britain; the freezing of military dialogue and security cooperation; the prevention of IDF officers from participating in training at the Royal College of Defence Studies; and repeated, biased and unilateral attacks against Israel in the international arena.