Australia slaps sanctions on seven hardline settlers

Australia says it is imposing financial sanctions and travel bans on seven Israeli settlers and a youth group involved in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

The seven are named in Australian media as Yinon Levi, Zvi Bar Yosef, Neria Ben Pazi, Elisha Yered, David Chai Chasdai, Einan Tanjil and Meir Ettinger, some of whom have been subject to sanctions by other Western countries in recent months.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong says the seven were involved in beatings, sexual assault and torture and in some cases death.

Australia also says it is sanctioning a group called Hilltop Youth, which Wong says is responsible for inciting and perpetrating violence against Palestinians,

No such organization called Hilltop Youth is known to exist. The term hilltop youth is used to refer to young religious hardliners who attempt to set up illegal outposts throughout the West Bank and have been known to use violence against Palestinians and Israeli security forces.

“We call on Israel to hold perpetrators of settler violence to account and to cease its ongoing settlement activity, which only inflames tensions and further undermines stability and prospects for a two-state solution,” Wong says in a statement.