Canadian food inspectors have ruled stores are not allowed to sell wines made in the West Bank labelled "Made in Israel.

Liquor Control Board of Ontario ordered the removal of bottles from the Psagot and Shiloh wineries, located in settlements outside Ramallah.

It said labels identifying them as Israeli contravened Canada’s policy on the occupied territories.

In a letter sent to stores this week, a board inspector wrote: “I request that all vendors discontinue any importations or sales of products labelled as ‘Products of Israel’ from the wineries named above (or others located in the same regions) until further notice.

“We are currently seeking clarifications from the CFIA on how such wines should be labelled in order to comply with the Food and Drugs Act.”

The letter also outlined the ruling by the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency), a government body that controls the marketing and sales of wine in Canada.

The CFIA said labelling wines as “‘Product of Israel’ would not be "an acceptable country of origin declaration for wine products that have been made from grapes that are grown, fermented, processed, blended and finished in the West Bank occupied territory”.

Michael Mostyn, chief executive of B’nai Brith Canada expressed amazement at what he called the "disturbing" decision.

Mr Mostyn said he was “expecting that the [CFIA] will soon rescind its recent decision to order the removal of certain Israeli wines from store shelves.

“B’nai Brith has received a lot of information on this matter from multiple sources and officials during the past 24 hours as we were advocating on behalf of the community.

“We can say now that we are expecting this disturbing decision to be corrected in short order.”

Yaakov Berg, chief executive of Psagot Winery, said: “We are living in Judea and Samaria by historic right.

He questioned why “Canada, of all places, which was established and developed on the basis of occupying and sacrificing the homeland of another people and which has no roots or historical validity to its existence there, doesn’t recognise the right of a Jew to live and cultivate vines on land inherited from his forefathers.”