

Two Italian supermarkets have announced that they plan to stop selling all Israeli products as they could not differentiate whether they came from West Bank settlements or inside the Green Line.

Open gallery view Coop Italia and Nordiconad have decided to boycott all Israeli goods. Credit: www.accessitaly.com

Italian grocery chains Coop and Nordiconad will remove all Israeli products from their shelves by the end of the month, according to the Stop Camel-Agrexco Web site - an Italian based coalition dedicated to the boycott of one of Israel's top agricultural exporters.

Grocery chain Coop Italia issued a statement saying that they had a problem with "traceability, namely that the consumer is unable to verify whether or not the product in question comes from the occupied territories."

The Coalition Web site added that this was "an important success for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid."

According to the Web site, the campaign to lobby Italian supermarkets was launched in January this year and has since been coordinated in both Italy and France.

The statement added that the coalition "has vowed to make sure that both chains follow through on their promises, and encourages everyone to participate in this struggle for respect for international law, and freedom and self-determination for the Palestinian people."