The forced closure came after the UK imposed a ban on trade with illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and sanctions on those who help build or finance them. It marks the lowest point in UK-Israeli relations for decades, with reports that the UK is considering a retaliatory expulsion of 27 Israeli diplomats from London.
The consulate is separate from the UK embassy in Tel Aviv, which remains open, and provides services to Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza. Amjad Iraqi, senior analyst on Israel and Palestine at the International Crisis Group, said the Israeli response was aimed at blocking UK support for Palestinians.
"It's quite telling that the Israeli government response was primarily about blocking the UK's ability to support Palestinians, rather than the core of UK-Israeli relations themselves," Iraqi said. "For [Israeli] foreign minister, Gideon Sa'ar, the response is low-cost, in their minds it's just Palestinians bearing the cost."
Israel has already curtailed the diplomatic activities of the Netherlands, Spain and Norway in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian residents of Sheikh Jarrah, the East Jerusalem neighbourhood that hosts the consulate, appeared resigned to the closure. "I mean, it was the British that were the basis of the issue wasn't it? They were the ones who signed the Balfour declaration?" said Abu Abdo, a 79-year-old former repairman and resident of the area, referring to the 1917 declaration supporting a Jewish state in Palestine.
The consulate has stood in Sheikh Jarrah since 1967, after the UK bought the plot in 1963 when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. The compound took four years to build, and weeks before the new consul-general, John Henry Lewen, was to move in, the six-day war broke out and Israel captured East Jerusalem. The UK did not recognise Jerusalem as being under any single country's control, and the consul-general answered directly to the Foreign Office, subordinate to neither the ambassador in Tel Aviv nor the ambassador in Amman.