ANDY BURNHAM was urged to act on Israel as a 17-year-old Palestinian boy, Karim Shalaldeh, was shot dead after illegal settlers entered a West Bank village today.

The head of the foreign affairs select committee Dame Emily Thornberry called on the PM to ban goods from the occupied Palestinian territory.

West Bank officials said that an Israeli gunman had opened fire towards a group of Palestinians who confronted the settlers for walking into the occupied village of Sa-ir.

A 70-year-old man was also wounded in the latest suspected act of intimidation by Israelis trying to force Palestinians off their own land.

Dame Emily said that British money should not be funding settler expansion in the area and a ban would help shore up the change of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.

Her comments followed Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband rebuking Israel on Thursday after it published a tender for the construction of a settlement in the occupied West Bank. Mr Miliband said was an “unacceptable act” which would “destroy” the two-state solution.

Speaking to Sky News, Dame Emily said: “The international community have agreed that the Palestinians are going nowhere, the Israelis are going nowhere.

“We have a far-right government in Israel which is doing its best to try to extinguish the hope of a Palestinian state by building as many Israeli settlements on that area as possible.

“A year ago my committee said that we should stop allowing the sale of goods from the West Bank in Britain and the government is yet to do anything about that.

“We must acknowledge that this is occupied Palestinian land, and whilst the occupation continues, then goods that come from businesses that are benefiting from an illegal occupation of Palestinian land should not be bought in Britain.

“It’s not too much to ask.”

A Stop the War Coalition spokeswoman said: “Emily Thornberry is right to call for a ban on goods from the occupied West Bank, but action to stop Israel’s violations of international law should have been taken long ago — the Palestine movement has been calling for it long enough. 

“And while a ban on West bank trade is a start, unless the UK immediately stops arming Israel and imposes sanctions, these violations will continue.”

A spokesman for Momentum said: “Thornberry is right. The government must ban all goods and cease trading with Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank.

“It’s time the Labour leadership took action.”

The Israeli plans to invite tenders for the construction of some 1,200 settlement homes in the occupied West Bank were slammed by major Western powers.

In a joint statement, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and Italy on Thursday blasted the decision as “unacceptable,” and demanded that Israel “retract the plans immediately.”

The settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law and, under international pressure, Israel held off for decades on plans to build in E1 to the east of Jerusalem.

Many observers, including many of Israel’s allies, have argued that the new development will deal a major blow to any hopes of a two-state solution to the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

The new settlements slice the West Bank in two and effectively isolates East Jerusalem.

The statement said: “At a time of grave instability in the West Bank with unprecedented levels of violence by settlers against civilians, and serious restrictions on the Palestinian economy, this decision is even more concerning.

“Not only will they [the plans] take us further from peace, but they further undermine Israel’s international standing.”

In a separate statement, the UN secretary general also said the E1 plan posed an “existential threat” to a contiguous Palestinian state.

Despite an Israeli court challenge to the plans by Bedouin Palestinians living in the area and Israeli peace groups, on Wednesday the Israeli Housing Ministry went ahead to issue a tender for 1,234 of the 3,401 housing units approved by the Israeli government last August.

The tender relates to around 4.6 sq miles between East Jerusalem and the settlement of Maale Adumim.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said any idea of a Palestinian state was “being erased.”

The deadline for bids has been set for October 19, which is just days before Israel’s general election on October 27, making it much harder for any future government to overturn any tenders issued.

Israel has already built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war. Around 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside them.

Despite international opposition, successive Israeli governments have allowed settlements to grow.

The expansion of the settlement project has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 at the head of the country’s most right-wing, pro-settler coalition, as well as the start of the Gaza war, sparked by the October 7 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas and its allies.

Meanwhile, Britain, Australia and Canada described the decision of the Israeli military authorities not to open a criminal investigation into the April 2024 air strikes that hit a convoy of aid vehicles in Gaza as “shameful” today.

The strikes sparked global outage after killing seven humanitarian workers from the US-based World Central Kitchen organisation.