The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) voted to boycott Israeli settlement goods in a historical decision at their quadrennial conference on Thursday. 

Citing the illegality of Israel's West Bank settlement under international law, the body called for establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

This came during the work of the group's 15th Congress, which is taking place in Berlin from May 23 until May 26.

Addressing the conference, the Secretary-General of the Palestine Trade Union Federation Shaher Saad thanked the participants and drew attention to the deteriorating situation on the ground.

"Israel has been transformed entirely under the leadership of the far-right government to a hothouse and incubator of racism, terrorism and unbridled settler violence," he told them. 

Saad pointed to the death toll in 2023, which has already reached 172 Palestinians. "The occupying state is holding more than 4,900 prisoners, including 31 female prisoners, and 160 children, including a girl under the age of 18, in addition to 1,000 administrative detainees, including six children," he added.

The European Trade Union Confederation called for regulatory measures to prevent EU legal entities from importing or exporting to products originating in illegal settlements, or aiding and facilitating such illegal situations, in accordance with EU treaties and in compliance with international law.

They stressed the need to reach a negotiated agreement between Israel and Palestine that would lead to the implementation of the two-state solution and the establishment of a lasting peaceful solution that respects the legitimate rights of both peoples to coexist in security and peace.

In his speech during the conference, Saad also conveyed the greetings of Palestinian worker, and said: "Many of the members of this conference witnessed some of the suffering that our male and female workers suffer at military checkpoints and in the unjust Israeli labor market, and the guests of the Palestinians turned from visitors into eyewitnesses to these crimes and violations, after they showed the necessary feelings of solidarity."

He added, "No two people in this world can no longer disagree that the foreign occupation of other people's lands is the calamity of all mankind and its black plague."

"If there is anything on earth that deserves condemnation, rejection, and denunciation, it is the continuation of the Israeli occupation of Palestine, that occupation that pays our disarmed people the cost of their existence and brutality, and curbs their unbridled lust for licking the blood of innocent people and taking their lives," he added.

He added, "If this international community had any will, it would have brought the Israeli occupation state to the platform of accountability, after its killing of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, and imposed on it the repulsive penalties it deserves, as it is a rogue state that continued to deviate from the law and break its prestige in public and at the fourth of the day." 

He continued: "That is why the international community, and you represent its beating heart, demands without delay the immediate recognition of our people's right to self-determination, and enabling them to establish their independent state over all the territories occupied in 1967, in implementation and compliance with the resolutions of international legitimacy in particular, and calling on the Israeli occupier to leave our lands, including the dismantling of its settlements and the separation wall, its annexation and its appropriation of the lands and property of our people, and this will only be achieved with the close support of your free governments and societies, which are innately supportive of right, justice and equality, and that is complementary and based on the ITUC-ETUC initiative, which calls for the recognition of the State of Palestine."

The European Trade Union Confederation's Congress is held only every four years. Ninety-three trade unions from 41 European countries take part, as well as 10 European trade union federations, representing a total of more than 45 million workers.