OSLO, Norway — The Norwegian government said on Friday it planned to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank as well as Jewish neighborhoods in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem.

“Norwegian people and Norwegian companies should not contribute to sustaining illegal settlements. The policy of colonization undermines the possibility of achieving a two-state solution,” the foreign ministry in Oslo said in a statement.

Specifically, the government said it wants to ban trade in goods produced in Israeli settlements in Gaza — none of which currently exist — and the West Bank as well as areas of Jerusalem that most in the international community consider to be occupied.

Israel has controlled the West Bank since capturing the territory from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War, a conflict that also saw Israel take the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Israel annexed East Jerusalem — a move not recognized by most of the international community — while the West Bank has remained under varying forms of Israeli military and civil control ever since.

There have not been any Jewish settlements inside Gaza since the 2005 Disengagement. While some far-right elements of the government have called for such settlements to be reestablished in the Strip, Prime Minister........

© The Times of Israel