EU foreign ministers approve sanctions on violent Israeli settlers, Hamas leaders

The 27 European Union foreign ministers have approved sanctions against violent Israeli settlers and organizations supporting them, says EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.

The diplomats approved new sanctions on Hamas leaders as well.

“It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery,” says Kallas. “Extremisms [sic] and violence carry consequences.”

“It’s done. The European Union is sanctioning today the main Israeli organizations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonization of the West Bank, as well as their leaders,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot writes on social media. “These most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay.”

The move in response to rising violence and settlement expansion in the West Bank had been stalled by former Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban. But the ouster of the nationalist leader and Israel ally, by rival Peter Magyar, now appears to have paved the way for the veto to be lifted.

EU officials say seven settlers and settler organizations will be blacklisted.

There is still technical and legal work that must be done in the EU before the sanctions are officially imposed. They will include the freezing of assets and entry bans.

Israel “firmly rejects” the decision, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar says on X, saying that the EU imposed sanctions “in an arbitrary and political manner… because of their political views and without any basis.”

“Equally outrageous is the unacceptable comparison the European Union has chosen to make between Israeli citizens and Hamas terrorists,” Sa’ar continues. “This is a completely distorted moral equivalence.”

An EU official told The Times of Israel that the Hamas sanctions on the same day were not an attempt to draw any sort of comparison, but was a condition from some member states for their support for sanctions on settlers.

“Israel has stood, stands, and will continue to stand for the right of Jews to settle in the heart of our homeland,” Sa’ar says. “No other people in the world has such a documented and longstanding right to its land as the Jewish people have to the Land of Israel. This is a moral and historical right that has also been recognized by the law of nations, and no actor can take it away from the Jewish people.”

The sanctions are not targeting settlements in general, but rather specific settlers and entities accused of perpetrating violence against Palestinians.