LONDON: The UK Embassy in Tel Aviv may have breached British sanctions and government security policies by employing an Israeli who owns an illegal property in the occupied West Bank, legal experts have told The Guardian.
Gila Ben-Yakov Phillips, who moved to the illegal settlement of Kerem Reim in 2022, is the embassy’s deputy chief of corporate services and human resources. She listed a house she bought in the settlement as her home address on financial documents.
Ben-Yakov Phillips later posted on social media advertising youth schemes and subsidized housing for childcare workers in the settlement.
Kerem Reim was constructed by Amana, which was targeted by British sanctions last year. In a government statement at the time, the UK said: “Amana has overseen the establishment of illegal outposts and provides funding and other economic resources for Israeli settlers involved in threatening and perpetrating acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian communities in the West Bank.”
Ben-Yakov Phillips bought her home from previous residents, not Amana, and the sale was completed before sanctions were introduced against the Israeli property developer.
Yet residents of Amana projects must still pay a monthly fee to the company, which would financially implicate Ben-Yakov Phillips and the embassy in sanctions violations. The Guardian viewed an itemized financial statement that demonstrates the monthly charge.
Dror Etkes, director of Kerem Navot, an organization that monitors Israeli land use, said: “If you live there, you pay.”
Sara Segneri, a sanctions law expert at Confinium Strategies, said: “UK sanctions law does not have a de minimis exception. Any funds or economic resources would be considered a sanctions breach, no matter how small.”
After the deployment of sanctions against Amana, the UK Embassy in Tel Aviv should have considered its legal responsibilities in relation to employees.
Ben-Yakov Phillips is not a British citizen and is therefore exempt from sanctions laws. Foreign citizens working at UK embassies, however, must comply with British sanctions law in order to obtain security clearances.
HR roles also regularly involve vetting, as in the case of a position offered at the British Embassy in Peru seen by The Guardian. The job advertisement says: “The successful candidate will be subject to a security clearance.”
It is unclear how Ben-Yakov Phillips potentially bypassed this requirement, or if it existed at all.
Segneri said: “If she is making payments to one of the settlements that is sanctioned then I think there could potentially be a violation (by the embassy).
“I hope the embassy has (investigated), or is in the process of investigating, the moneys that they’re paying to this employee and whether she has funds that are then going to the settlements.
“It goes against the meaning and intent of the sanctions programs if UK government employees around the world are allowed to disregard sanctions or potentially utilize their personal income from the UK government to pay sanctioned entities.”
In Israel’s last election in 2022, more than 85 percent of voters from Kerem Reim supported the far-right party of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.
“I would have thought the government will have taken steps to ensure that neither it nor any of its employees is in violation of any UK sanctions or its obligations under international law,” said Prof. Philippe Sands, a member of Palestine’s legal team for the International Court of Justice case concerning Israel’s occupation.
