The Biden administration is making plans to require goods produced in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank to be clearly labeled as coming from there, US officials told the Financial Times on Saturday, another sign of White House dissatisfaction with Benjamin Netanyahu's government.

The final green light for this step and its timing have not been determined, but it aims to increase pressure on Israel due to increasing settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, and comes amid American frustration with the behavior of the Hebrew state in the war on besieged Gaza. The move would reverse a policy introduced by the Donald Trump administration in 2020 that required goods produced in the West Bank to be labeled “Made in Israel.”

The Biden administration was about to announce this move last month, after far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, announced the largest confiscation of West Bank land in decades. Smotrich's announcement came during a visit by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to Israel, which angered the administration. Two days later, the United States abstained from a vote on the ceasefire resolution at the United Nations, allowing it to pass, and officials did not want to reveal the labeling requirements at the same time. The US State Department declined to comment. Other countries also label goods coming from settlements.

The EU Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that goods arriving from Jewish settlements in the West Bank must be marked as produced in the occupied territories and must not mislead buyers that they come from Israel itself. The potential decision to label settlement goods highlights years of American frustration with Israeli settlement building in the West Bank, which most of the world considers illegal and an obstacle to the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The Israeli war in Gaza, which has killed more than 33,000 people, according to Palestinian authorities, has also increased tensions between the two allies. Biden warned Netanyahu in a phone call on Thursday that US support for Israel in the conflict would depend on taking immediate steps to alleviate the humanitarian suffering in the Strip.

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem says that 620,000 Jewish settlers live in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the Six-Day War in 1967.

Labeling goods as produced in Jewish settlements in the West Bank would make it easier for American consumers to avoid these products. It would also spark a backlash from Israel, which has described these policies as anti-Israel and discriminatory. Until Trump changed that in 2020, US policy had for years required products made in the West Bank to be labeled as such, and the Barack Obama administration warned in 2016 that labeling them as “Made in Israel” could result in fines. The United States has recently intensified its criticism of the Netanyahu government over the civilian cost of its war against Hamas, with the United Nations warning that hundreds of thousands of Gazans face imminent famine.

The United States also opposes Netanyahu's plan to launch an attack on Rafah, where more than a million displaced Gazans have taken refuge. But Biden refused to apply any conditions to US military aid to Israel. The administration is also moving forward with an $18 billion arms sale to Israel, including F-15 fighter jets, over the next five years — one of the largest US arms deals with its ally. The discussion of the classification step comes after the Biden administration said last February that Israeli settlement expansion is “contrary to international law.” It also announced the imposition of sanctions on settlers accused of committing acts of violence against Palestinians. Last year, the United States stopped funding Jewish academic institutions in the West Bank.