The pension board of the United Methodist Church is boycotting investment in five Israeli banks due to human rights infringements, it announced on Tuesday.

The five banks – Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank and Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot – are each involved in financing settlement construction in Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

This is believed to be the first time a pension fund of a large American church has chosen to engage in divestment from Israeli banks, and has been described as an important step in the Boycott, Divest and Sanction campaign (B.D.S).

B.D.S. is an international campaign to pressure Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories. It has been described as a campaign to destroy Israel by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The pension board of the United Methodist Church has listed 39 companies from several countries that it will exclude from future investment due to their failure to meet its Human Rights Investment Policy guidelines.

The list also includes an Israeli construction company, Shikin & Binui, due to concerns that it is heavily involved in settlement building.

The board has not boycotted Israeli companies indiscriminately, and the fund remains invested in "approximately 18 Israeli companies that meet our investment criteria," Colette Nies, a spokesperson for the pension board said.

A group within the United Methodist Church that has been heavily campaigning for divestment over the Palestine situation, United Methodist Kairos Response, has celebrated the decision of the board.

"To our knowledge, this is the first time" that an American church has chosen to exclude Israeli banks from their investment portfolio," Susanne Hodder, a spokesperson for the group said.