TEL AVIV -- Israel on Thursday ordered the British Consulate in Jerusalem to be closed, ending a nearly 200-year presence there and sending the consul general and 19 other diplomats out of the country.
The decision, triggered by the U.K.'s recent ban on trade from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, comes as Israel prepares for an election this month that pits Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a tough race against his opposition.
In announcing the closure, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that "any country that acts against Israel must know there will be a price."
Both Saar and British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband said that a small team of diplomats would remain at the building, though it will be stripped of its consular name.
"We have been clear that we do not accept that the government of Israel has the legal right to close the British Consulate General in Jerusalem, which has been there for nearly 200 years," Miliband said. "The U.K. government reiterates its long-standing view that East Jerusalem is occupied territory."
The dispute took root after the U.K. and other European nations announced they would impose sanctions over the expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, which Miliband at the time described as "ethnic cleansing."
Ties between the U.K. and Israel have deteriorated as the Labour government has taken a harder line on Israel, partly in response to growing public anger over the country's prosecution of the Gaza war.
The British first opened a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838. The current consulate building sits in East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood. Israel won control of East Jerusalem in the 1967 war and later declared sovereignty over it. The United Nations and most of the international community don't recognize Israel's claims to sovereignty and regard Jewish settlements there as illegal. The Palestinians call for the territory to be part of their hoped-for independent state comprising the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
Europeans described the sanctions effort as a means to support the two-state solution, the idea of which has become less tangible since the Hamas-led attacks on Israel three years ago.
Netanyahu has opposed a two-state solution, calling it an existential threat to Israel's security. Public support for it in Israel also has declined over the years.
In January, Israel began tearing down the East Jerusalem headquarters of the U.N.'s main agency tasked with providing assistance to Palestinian refugees. The compound had been largely vacant after laws limiting the operations of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency went into effect.