EU agrees sanctions on Israeli settlers over West Bank violence

There is still technical and legal work that must be done in the EU before the sanctions are officially imposed.EU officials said that seven settlers or settler organisations would be sanctioned. The EU also agreed to sanction more representatives from Hamas.ReutersThe Sa-Nur settlement has been recently reestablished on a hill south-west of JeninIsraeli media have reported that the sanctioned individuals and organisations include Daniella Weiss, who is already sanctioned by the UK and is known as the "godmother" of the settler movement.It is also reported that they include the organisations Nachala and Regavim, movements that promote settlements, as well as HaShomer Yosh and Amana, organisations that help to finance and assist unauthorised settlements known as outposts.Meir Deutsch, the CEO of Regavim, and Avichai Suissa, the CEO of HaShomer Yosh, are also reportedly on the list. Suissa was sanctioned by the US in 2024, but removed from the sanctions list under Donald Trump.Israel has built about 160 settlements housing some 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war. There are periods of near-daily reports of violence by settlers towards Palestinians. The UN documented more than 1,800 settler attacks in 2025 that resulted in casualties or damage to property, in around 280 communities across the West Bank.Recent examples include allegations Israeli settlers forced Palestinians to exhume a grave, which the UN human rights office condemned as "appalling"; a Palestinian man shot dead by an Israeli during a settler attack in the village of Tayasir; and a spate of attacks on villages including homes, vehicles, and agricultural fields set on fire.