we've had a quote from the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Israel Gideon Sah and he says "We've been informed about the UK's decision to include two of our ministers on the British sanctions list." He says it's outrageous that elected representatives members of the government has objected to these kinds of measures and that he discussed it earlier with Prime Minister Netanyahu and they're going to hold a special government meeting early next week to decide on our response to this unacceptable decision well let's bring in our international affairs editor Dominic Wagghorn dominic what can you tell us about this yeah as you say um we have this response from Israel's foreign minister Gideon Sah saying that um what Britain's done is outrageous um and he's kind of jumping the gun there in the sense that it's not kind of officially announced yet although the Times has been reporting that Britain and Canada and Australia and New Zealand are all um united in in these sanctions which kind of distance them very much from what Washington's been doing with Israel so they are freezing the assets and imposing the uh travel bans on Bengavir who's Israel's security minister a notorious far-right extremist regarded as a terrorist by some a Jewish terrorist by some certainly an anti-Arab racist who is um Israel's security minister and also Bezalottrich who is um equally on the far right of Israeli politics who is the finance minister in the Netanyahu coalition government controversial for a number of reasons that their history um has been littered with controversial comments and and uh allegedly racist anti-ar Arab rhetoric but most recently they've been very controversial for what they've said about uh Gaza smrich in particular um who's talked about Gaza not being allowed a grain of wheat uh saying Gaza will be entirely destroyed and Palestinians will have to leave in great numbers uh to go to third countries so accused there of of starving or or certainly expressing support for the idea of Palestinians being starved out of Gaza uh if you take his words in that light and Ben Gavir uh the national security minister someone who's advocated for instance the removal of the Alaxa mosque and the the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem replacing it with a Jewish third temple making him very much a Jewish extremist so they're being singled out for sanctioning by the British government joined with Canada Australia New Zealand and others um and that is a significant break I think it's fair to say to sanction two members of the Israeli government uh and obviously we've had a furious response from the Israelis saying this is an unacceptable decision but I think it sort of highlights the growing diplomatic ostracization of Israel as concerned about its alleged genocide in Gaza its alleged war crimes in Gaza uh continues to to um isolate uh the country so I think we'll expect more furious responses from Israel and this comes ahead of other diplomatic expected diplomatic developments next week France is hosting a meeting uh along with Saudi Arabia where France may become the latest country to recognize Palestine that will be also I think an expression of their frustration uh with Israel we've had the Irish government we've had um we've had uh the Amnesty International and we've had various former UN officials all saying that uh Israel is now guilty of genocide something the Israeli government furiously uh rejects but it is I think this this move today that's just been announced is certainly part of that as I say diplomatic ostracization of Israel that Israelis will be very angry about saying what they're doing in Gaza is a necessary means to try and get their hostages back but the way they're doing it is causing deep concern and obviously now concrete diplomatic action from some of Israel's closest allies and this additional pressure that the UK government uh is putting on Israel i mean yes you know we've had one minister um expressing his displeasure about it but in reality will this change anything well I say it's it's a sort of incremental process i mean what this does now is it makes impossible for it Bengavir and bezel smotro to travel to Britain Canada Australia New Zealand and whatever other countries are involved in this um and it freezes their assets whether they wanted to come here or not um and certainly you know their prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's his travel movements are restricted because he um because of the uh actions against him in the international criminal courts and we have an in separate uh legal uh procedure going on in the international court of justice the highest world uh court that has accused Israel provisionally of possibly being guilty of war crimes and and genocide uh in Gaza and saying that um effectively putting Israel on kind of probation while that those claims are are looked at um you know I think some of these things are symbolic some of them do obviously have a sort of effect on minister's ability to invest and to travel but what will make a I think a bigger difference is if Britain for instance decides that Israel is guilty of genocide something I pressed the foreign secretary on a couple of weeks ago uh he made it pretty clear that he's going to leave it for the courts to decide but he and his prime minister I think are under growing pressure to decide whether they themselves as both lawyers believe or not whether Israel is now guilty of genocide certainly if they're concerned about two of its ministers the government ministers being guilty of what they're accusing them of then you might think that Israel's prime minister might be tired with the same brush