The fifth largest food retailer in Britain announced it would end trade with four Israeli companies who supply produce from disputed West Bank settlements. The Co-operative Group announced it was \"no longer engaging with any supplier of produce known to be source from Israeli settlements,\" a statement issued by the supermarket group said, the British daily The Observer said Sunday. Palestinian human rights campaigners welcomed the decision saying it was the first time a supermarket anywhere in the West took such a position, the daily said. The Co-operative Group \"has taken the lead internationally in this historic decision to hold corporations to account for complicity in Israel\'s violations of Palestinian human rights,\" Hillary Smith a campaigner coordinator for the Boycott Israel Network told the paper. The decision will affect four Israeli companies and contracts worth some $569,000, the newspaper said. The four Israeli companies are Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin, Israel\'s largest agricultural export company. The Co-operative Group said it did not view the decision as a boycott of Israeli goods, and said contracts will go to other Israeli companies that can guarantee they won\'t export produce from illegal settlements, the paper said.