WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has signed a new executive order paving the way for the US government to impose sanctions on extremist Jewish settlers responsible for deadly violence in the West Bank.
The State Department on Thursday unveiled a first round of designations under the new authority targeting four individuals who carried out property destruction and other violent acts that led to the forced displacement of Palestinian communities, according to a senior administration official.
West Bank violence has soared following Hamas’ attack on southern Israel. Since Oct. 7, the United Nations has recorded nearly 500 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians, including an incident on Wednesday in which settlers attempted to steal a water tank from a Palestinian house in Ramallah.
A record 370 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed during that same period, according to the UN’s humanitarian arm OCHA. Israeli settlers killed at least eight of them, while most others died at the hands of Israeli forces during search-and-arrest and other operations, OCHA said.
The sanctions come as US officials have grown frustrated by the failure of the Israeli government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prosecute settlers whose violence Washington says plays into the hands of the Gaza militants.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan issued a cabinet memo in November directing departments and agencies to develop policy options for addressing the West Bank violence. The next month, the State Department announced it would deny visas to a group of unnamed Israeli settlers accused of attacking and displacing Palestinians in the West Bank.
Since the current Israeli government took office in late 2022, it has accelerated West Bank settlement expansion, which is deemed illegal by most countries and Palestinians say undermines their quest for statehood.
The West Bank and east Jerusalem — captured by Israel in the 1967 war — are home to some 3 million Palestinians. Along with Gaza, the territories are sought by Palestinians for a future independent state.
Israelis hit with sanctions under the new authority will be denied access to the US financial system. The sanctions cannot be applied to any of the estimated 60,000 Americans living in the West Bank settlements.
Hard-line Israeli cabinet members, including Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, were not considered as possible targets, the administration official said.
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich attended a conference Sunday in Jerusalem, where participants called on Israel to rebuild settlements in the Gaza Strip after the war is ended. Following nearly 40 years of occupation, Israel withdrew its settlers from the Palestinian territory in 2005.
