Settler goods sold as Israeli, Europe hit with probe

mislabelled settlement – A rights group says Israeli exporters have repeatedly hidden the origins of produce grown in illegal settlements in occupied Palestine—and the Syrian Golan Heights—so it can enter the UK and EU under “grown in Israel” labels and benefit from unlawful tariff ad

By the time the paperwork reaches Europe, the origin can look like a footnote. A product grown in land Palestinians say was stolen can be described as if it were cultivated inside Israel’s recognised borders.

A new investigation by the rights group Global Echo alleges that this practice has been happening at scale: Israeli exporters to the UK and EU have regularly concealed where their produce was grown to qualify for tax breaks that bolster the settler economy.

Global Echo said it analysed more than 30. 000 export documents covering thousands of Israeli shipments to the UK and EU over eight years. In one in six shipments it investigated. the agricultural products it found had originated in illegal settlements in occupied Palestine and the Syrian Golan Heights. and at least 42 percent of that material had been mislabelled as Israeli-grown.

“This isn’t an aberration and its not accidental,” Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man, the executive director of Global Echo, said. “This is a system that the UK and the EU have perpetuated and agreed to.”

The group is demanding that the UK government review controls on Israeli imports. It has also promised to take legal action if HMRC does not tackle verification concerns.

Europe, as described in the investigation, is where the economic incentives become most visible. Europe is Israel’s biggest market, and the EU is Israel’s single top trading partner, accounting for almost 30% of exports.

A free trade agreement signed in 1995 reduced tariffs for Israeli imports. But the investigation stresses that products from settlements do not qualify for those lower tariffs because Israel’s military occupation of Palestine and Syrian territory is illegal under international law.

Global Echo’s argument is that mislabelling turns that illegality into a commercial advantage. It said mislabelled settlement goods account for “a substantial and recurring component” of agricultural trade from Israel to Europe in recent years.

Concealing the origin of produce from settlements allows importers to claim lower import tariffs. Those lower tariffs, the group says, make fruit and vegetables from occupied land more competitive in European shops while reducing tax revenues for European governments.

“In other words. ” Global Echo’s report describes the wider impact. “European consumers and governments unknowingly subsidise settlement agriculture.” The group also said European trade continues to contribute materially to an unlawful territorial regime “in direct tension with EU law”. It called the pattern “not the result of isolated lapses. but of a systemic failure of regulatory design. enforcement. and accountability”.

The investigation lays out three main techniques. In one approach, it said producers sometimes give an accurate settlement address and postcode, but still list the produce as Israeli—an approach Global Echo called “hiding in plain sight”.

Global Echo said this kind of labelling is permitted under a 2005 technical agreement between Israel and the EU. It said the practice is also encouraged in guidance from the Israeli tax authority. even though that guidance recognises settlement products are not eligible for lower tariffs. Under that system. Global Echo said the burden of detecting and correctly taxing goods from occupied territory is pushed onto EU and UK border officials.

Two other approaches, the investigation said, involve fraud that had been publicly detailed by Israeli businessmen in a 2015 Knesset session. Global Echo said settlement firms either give a “sham address” that falsely indicates production inside Israel’s recognised borders. or “mingle” settlement goods with Israeli products for export—often in cooling or packing facilities—and label the mix as “grown in Israel”.

“Together,” Global Echo said, “these practices undermine the effective application of EU trade and policy rules by systematically obscuring territorial origin.”

The group also alleged that European customs authorities routinely accepted invalid Israeli-issued organic and plant health certificates for settlement products. Global Echo said only Palestinian or Syrian authorities can certify produce grown in occupied territory.

The shipments examined by Global Echo, it said, represent a tiny fraction of Israel’s total agricultural trade with Europe. But within that slice, it put the value of mislabelled settlement goods grown on land stolen from Palestinians at €13m (£11.2m).

For Palestinians living beside the farms, the investigation is not abstract. Global Echo said Amer Abu Khader. 35. has never set foot on three plots of family land near his home in the north Jordan valley village of Ein al-Beida. Shortly after the six-day war in 1967, Israeli settlers fenced them into a new settlement, Mehola.

“We have all the documents proving that it belongs to us,” Khader said. He added that other families had also been robbed by settlers in Mehola who falsely claimed the land was owned by absentee landlords in order to seize it. “Many of the owners are still alive and living in the area, yet their land was taken.”.

Global Echo said one of Khader family plots was incorporated into the agricultural holdings of a major Israeli importer that supplied the UK market, citing documents from the company and Israel’s agriculture ministry.

Europe has for decades deemed Israel’s settlements illegal, a stance the investigation said was strengthened by the international court of justice’s 2024 ruling that Israel should end its occupation of Palestine “as rapidly as possible”.

Yet the investigation argues that economic leverage has not been used to match those principles. The legal scholar Michael Lynk—who wrote an introduction to the report—said the findings show a “gap between European principle and conduct”. He is a professor emeritus of law at Canada’s Western University and a former UN special rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

Global Echo also said that even when Europe applies its own trade rules. Israeli government subsidies blunt the effect on the settlement economy. When exporters of produce grown in occupied territories are barred from claiming preferential tariffs in Europe. the group said they can get compensation from a secretive fund.

The EU is debating imposing tariffs on goods from occupied Palestine in an attempt to curb Israeli violence and settlement expansion. Global Echo said. while also warning there is little clarity on how much trade could be at stake. Neither European countries nor Israel, the group said, publish data on exports from illegal settlements.

The investigation points to another obstacle: Israel’s reluctance to distinguish between citizens and companies in occupied territory and those inside recognised borders, which it said obscures the scale of the settlement economy.

The only public figure Global Echo described came from an unverified estimate Israel gave to the World Bank 15 years ago. stating that 2.23% of exports to Europe came from settlements. Since then. the settler population in the occupied West Bank has increased by over 50%. the investigation said. and Israeli leaders have described settlement farms as part of expanding control.

In 2024, Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich posted on X: “We are erasing the Green Line through agriculture in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank].” The Green Line is the 1949 armistice boundary, once viewed as a possible template for Israel’s border with a future Palestinian state.

Israel’s subsidies, the investigation said, underpin the economic viability of many settlements, whose populations expanded beyond a small ideologically committed core. It also included a reference to a US immigrant to Israel telling Haaretz that she moved to the West Bank “to manage her costs”.

For Palestinian farmers, Global Echo says support for Israeli agriculture in occupied territories is paired with restrictions and attacks. It listed cutting off access to water and limiting movements. along with violent attacks. and said all of it has escalated since the 7 October 2023 Hamas-led attacks.

“ We sell our produce in Nablus. Qabatiya and Jenin. but reaching those markets is difficult because checkpoints [on the roads] are frequently closed. ” said Mohamed Faiz Daraaq. 53. one of Khader’s neighbours. He also said. “The spring near our land. that was an essential resource for our farming. has been taken from us.” Daraaq added that the settlers turned the area into a recreational site for themselves. with swings. seating areas and other facilities. and that it has become a place for their tourism and leisure.

The picture that emerges from the investigation is not only about labels. It’s about what happens after the produce is sold: who gains from tariff relief, who bears the loss, and how far the trade chain stretches before responsibility stops.

The question now placed on UK decision-makers is direct: whether border checks and verification controls can catch mislabelling before it reaches supermarket shelves—and whether enforcement can finally match the illegality Europe has long recognised.

Global Echo settlement produce mislabeling occupied Palestine European imports HMRC tariff breaks illegal settlements Jordan Valley Ein al-Beida Mehola Syrian Golan Heights