EU imposes sanctions on Israeli settlers

Middle East conflict

EU imposes sanctions on Israeli settlers

The violence of radical Israeli settlers is causing horror in the EU. A long-planned sanction decision is now being implemented.

The EU has imposed the announced sanctions because of violence by radical Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank. The measures affect four organizations and three individuals, as the member state representation in Brussels announced. They are accused of serious and systematic human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank.

With the sanctions decision, the EU implemented a political agreement in principle from a meeting of foreign ministers on May 11th. As a result, assets in the EU have to be frozen. An additional EU entry and transit ban applies to people.

Those sanctioned include the Nachala settlement movement and its director Daniella Weiss. “Through its activities, Nachala plays a crucial role in facilitating and promoting coercive measures that lead to the displacement of Palestinians and violate their right to property, their right to private and family life and their right to self-determination, as well as the right to life and physical integrity,” the statement said in the EU’s Official Journal. Settler violence continues to emanate from Nachala’s outpost. Several outposts were built on privately owned Palestinian land.

With the sanctions, the EU wants to send a clear signal against settler violence. Since the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023 and the Gaza war it triggered, violence by radical Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank has increased significantly. There is increasing talk of “Jewish terror” in the Israeli media.

The EU also sees both the attacks against Palestinians and the construction of settlements in the West Bank as obstacles to international efforts to find a long-term peace solution to the Middle East conflict. Experts also classify the settler violence as part of a strategy by the right-wing religious government in Israel with the aim of expelling Palestinians from the occupied West Bank in order to enable further land seizures there in the long term.

The EU first imposed sanctions due to settler violence in 2024. Recently, however, further planned measures were blocked by Hungary for a long time. The political agreement in Brussels only became possible after the change of government there.