EU Foreign Ministers Approve Sanctions on Israeli Settlers for West Bank Violence

The 27 foreign ministers of the European Union approved new sanctions on Monday against Israeli settlers over rising violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The United Nations has recorded a surge in settler attacks since the Gaza war started in October 2023.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said it was "high time we move from deadlock to delivery... extremisms and violence carry consequences."

A change in government in Hungary ended months of delays to the EU's plans. The former right-wing Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, a close ally of Israel, had blocked further sanctions.

French foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot wrote on social media that the EU was "sanctioning today the main Israeli organisations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonisation of the West Bank."

Israel's foreign minister Gideon Sa'ar called the decision "arbitrary and political" and said Israel would continue to "stand for the right of Jews to settle in the heart of our homeland."

Successive Israeli governments have allowed and encouraged settlement growth. Expansion has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022 with a right-wing, pro-settler coalition, along with the Gaza war triggered by Hamas's attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Technical and legal work remains before the EU imposes the sanctions officially.

EU officials said the sanctions would target seven settlers or settler organizations. The EU also agreed to sanction more Hamas representatives.

Israeli media reported that the list includes Daniella Weiss, already sanctioned by the United Kingdom and known as the "godmother" of the settler movement. It also includes the organizations Nachala and Regavim, which promote settlements, as well as HaShomer Yosh and Amana, which finance and assist unauthorized outposts.

Meir Deutsch, CEO of Regavim, and Avichai Suissa, CEO of HaShomer Yosh, are also on the list, the media reported. Suissa was sanctioned by the United States in 2024 but removed from the list under Donald Trump.

Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since occupying the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. There are periods of near-daily reports of settler violence toward Palestinians. The UN documented more than 1,800 settler attacks in 2025 that caused casualties or property damage in around 280 West Bank communities.

Recent cases include allegations that Israeli settlers forced Palestinians to exhume a grave, which the UN human rights office called "appalling"; a Palestinian man shot dead by an Israeli during a settler attack in the village of Tayasir; and attacks on villages that set homes, vehicles, and agricultural fields on fire.

A number of EU countries have pushed to ban products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, though the EU has not reached consensus.