UK and others sanction 2 far-right Israeli Cabinet ministers over violence in the occupied West Bank

In­ter­na­tion­al pres­sure has in­creased again on Is­rael.

Britain, Aus­tralia, Cana­da, New Zealand and Nor­way said Tues­day they have im­posed sanc­tions on two far-right Is­raeli gov­ern­ment min­is­ters for al­leged­ly “in­cit­ing ex­trem­ist vi­o­lence” against Pales­tini­ans in the Is­raeli-oc­cu­pied West Bank.

The de­ci­sion by West­ern gov­ern­ments friend­ly to Is­rael was a sharp re­buke of Is­rael’s set­tle­ment poli­cies in the West Bank and of set­tler vi­o­lence, which has spiked since Hamas’ at­tack on Oc­to­ber 7, 2023, ig­nit­ed the war in the Gaza Strip.

Ita­mar Ben-Gvir and Beza­lel Smotrich, key part­ners in Prime Min­is­ter Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu’s coali­tion, are cham­pi­ons of Is­raeli set­tle­ment who sup­port con­tin­u­ing the war in Gaza, fa­cil­i­tat­ing what they call the vol­un­tary em­i­gra­tion of its Pales­tin­ian pop­u­la­tion and the re­build­ing of Jew­ish set­tle­ments there.

They could now face as­set freezes and trav­el bans.

The five coun­tries’ for­eign min­is­ters said in a joint state­ment that Ben-Gvir and Smotrich “have in­cit­ed ex­trem­ist vi­o­lence and se­ri­ous abus­es of Pales­tin­ian hu­man rights. Ex­trem­ist rhetoric ad­vo­cat­ing the forced dis­place­ment of Pales­tini­ans and the cre­ation of new Is­raeli set­tle­ments is ap­palling and dan­ger­ous.”

U.K. For­eign Sec­re­tary David Lam­my said the two men “have been in­cit­ing vi­o­lence against Pales­tin­ian peo­ple for months and months and months” and “en­cour­ag­ing egre­gious abus­es of hu­man rights.”

The an­nounce­ment came as tra­di­tion­al al­lies of Is­rael es­ca­late de­nounce­ments of Is­rael’s ac­tions in Gaza, from the high civil­ian death toll to a month­s­long block­ade that led to famine warn­ings.

Is­rael’s For­eign Min­istry said ear­li­er it had been in­formed of the sanc­tions.

Smotrich, the fi­nance min­is­ter, wrote on so­cial me­dia that he learned of the sanc­tions while he was in­au­gu­rat­ing a new West Bank set­tle­ment. “We are de­ter­mined to con­tin­ue build­ing,” he said.

“We over­came Pharoah, we’ll over­come Starmer’s Wall.” Ben-Gvir, the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, wrote on so­cial me­dia, re­fer­ring to British Prime Min­is­ter Keir Starmer.

Is­rael’s For­eign Min­is­ter Gideon Saar called the sanc­tions de­ci­sion “out­ra­geous.” He said he had dis­cussed it with Ne­tanyahu and they would meet next week to dis­cuss Is­rael’s re­sponse.

Ne­tanyahu is the tar­get of an ar­rest war­rant is­sued by the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court last year over al­leged war crimes in Gaza, part of a glob­al wave of out­rage at Is­rael’s con­duct dur­ing its 20-month war against Hamas. Ne­tanyahu has de­nied the al­le­ga­tions and ac­cused the the court of be­ing bi­ased against Is­rael.

The Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion took the rare step of sanc­tion­ing rad­i­cal Is­raeli set­tlers im­pli­cat­ed in vi­o­lence in the oc­cu­pied West Bank — sanc­tions that were lift­ed by Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

Eitay Mack, an Is­raeli hu­man rights lawyer who spent years cam­paign­ing for the sanc­tions on Smotrich and Ben-Gvir — along with vi­o­lent West Bank set­tlers — de­scribed Tues­day’s move as “his­toric.”

“It means the wall of im­mu­ni­ty that Is­raeli politi­cians had has been bro­ken,” he said. “It’s un­be­liev­able that it took so long for West­ern gov­ern­ments to sanc­tion Is­raeli politi­cians, and the fact that it’s be­ing done while Trump is pres­i­dent is quite amaz­ing.”

Mack added: “It is a mes­sage to Ne­tanyahu him­self that he could be next.”

Is­rael cap­tured the West Bank, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. The Pales­tini­ans want all three ter­ri­to­ries for a fu­ture state.

Suc­ces­sive Is­raeli gov­ern­ments have pro­mot­ed set­tle­ment growth and con­struc­tion stretch­ing back decades. It has ex­plod­ed un­der Ne­tanyahu’s far-right coali­tion, which has set­tlers in key Cab­i­net posts.

There are now well over 100 set­tle­ments across the West Bank that house more than 500,000 set­tlers. The set­tlers have Is­raeli cit­i­zen­ship, while the ter­ri­to­ry’s 3 mil­lion Pales­tini­ans live un­der Is­raeli mil­i­tary rule, with the Pales­tin­ian Au­thor­i­ty ad­min­is­ter­ing pop­u­la­tion cen­tres.

Most of the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty con­sid­ers the set­tle­ments il­le­gal, and Pales­tini­ans see them as the great­est ob­sta­cle to an even­tu­al two-state so­lu­tion, which is still seen in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as the on­ly way to re­solve the con­flict. —JERUSALEM (AP)

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Sto­ry by JU­LIA FRANKEL and JILL LAW­LESS | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

Jill Law­less re­port­ed from Lon­don.