The European Union has agreed to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers and leading Hamas figures.
Consensus was reached on the sanctions packages at a meeting of member states’ foreign ministers on Monday. The measures targeting Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians in the West Bank were long-awaited, having been blocked by the self-styled illiberal government of Hungary’s former premier Viktor Orban.
That package targets three Israeli settlers and four settler organisations. However, their identities have not yet been publicly disclosed.
“It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in a social media post following the agreement. “Extremisms and violence carry consequences.”
Hungary’s former longtime Prime Minister Viktor Orban had blocked the sanctions for months. However, the appointment of new PM Peter Magyar on Saturday saw the veto quickly lifted.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot welcomed the turnaround, saying that the EU was “sanctioning the main Israeli organisations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonisation of the West Bank”.
“These most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay,” he wrote on social media.
EU agrees sanctions on Israeli West Bank settlers, Hamas leaders
