Hello and welcome to NewsHour.
It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service studios in central London.
I'm Tim Franks.
One of the big questions facing governments, particularly Western governments right now,
is how, indeed, whether they can influence events in the Middle East.
Yes, many European countries, along with others such as Canada and Australia,
have expressed outrage over what's going on in Gaza after the deaths and the hunger and the blockading of aid.
as well as professing what they say is the deep opposition that they have to Israeli settlement,
expansion and violence in the occupied West Bank.
Well, today, Britain, along with Australia, Canada,
New Zealand and Norway, jointly sanctioned two ministers of the Israeli government.
They are the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister,
Itamar Ben-Gavir, both hard-right religious nationalists.
It's thought to be the first time that Britain has sanctioned members of the Israeli government.
The Israeli foreign minister has called the move unacceptable.
The British Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, explained why.
Ben-Gavir and Smotrich have been inciting violence against Palestinian people for months and months and months.
They have been encouraging egregious abuses of human rights.
We have been raising this with the Israeli government.
both privately and publicly.