From the Liveblog of
Thursday, May 16, 2024
US looking to sanction extremist Israelis for attacks on Gaza aid convoys, officials tell ToI
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
The Biden administration is looking into sanctioning the extremist Israelis involved in the recent spate of attacks targeting humanitarian aid convoys for Gaza civilians, two US officials tell The Times of Israel.
The sanctions would be levied through the executive order signed by US President Joe Biden in February, which allowed the Treasury Department to designate Israelis involved in violent activity in the West Bank, the officials say.
The attacks in the West Bank largely started last month when Israel agreed to expand the aid route from Jordan to ensure that more assistance gets into Gaza.
The far-right group Tzav 9 has led many of the protests in both the West Bank and within Israel proper, aiming to block aid trucks from reaching Gaza. The group argues that the assistance is being co-opted by Hamas — a charge the US denies. Israel has also made a point in recent months of stressing the amount of aid it is allowing into Gaza, indicating that it, too, doesn’t believe the assistance is for Hamas.
Tzav 9 also argues that the aid should be used as leverage to secure the release of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, but rights groups say doing so would violate international law.
Since the attacks on aid convoys in the West Bank are a relatively new phenomenon, it is unclear whether the administration will be able to put together the legal cases necessary for justifying sanctions against involved individuals by the time the US issues its fourth batch of settler sanctions in the coming weeks, one of the US officials says.
Individual members of the Israeli security forces are believed to be tipping off the far-right activists regarding the location of the aid trucks once they’re en route to Gaza, enabling their interception by those who have blocked the convoys from proceeding, and looting their contents.
Early on in the war, when the attacks were happening regularly near Israel’s Kerem Shalom and Nitzana crossings into Gaza, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir signaled to police, which are under his jurisdiction, to take a lax approach on the crack down, an Israeli official said.
While the US has thus far avoided including Ben Gvir himself in its sanctions, it began targeting individuals in his inner circle in the last batch, designating Benzi Gopstein, the head of the anti-miscegenation Lehava group.
The second US official says this strategy could well continue in subsequent rounds of sanctions.
One potential candidate is Ben Gvir’s chief of staff Chanamel Dorfman, who has a long history of involvement in extremist activity, including in the West Bank.
Commenting on the extremists’ attacks on the aid convoys earlier this week, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said, “We are looking at the tools that we have to respond to this.”
“We are also raising our concerns at the highest level of the Israeli government and it’s something that we make no bones about – this is completely and utterly unacceptable behavior.”
The State Department did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
