In a coordinated diplomatic move that amplifies international pressure on Israel over mounting settler violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank, a coalition of six Western nations announced new joint targeted sanctions against extremist settlers, pro-settlement organizations, and a senior hard-line Israeli cabinet minister on Tuesday. The joint declaration was released by top foreign policy officials from Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Norway, and New Zealand, marking a significant escalation of global pushback against Israel’s policies in the occupied territory.
In their joint statement, the group of diplomats highlighted a long-standing pattern of abuse that has gone unchecked by Israeli authorities. “Extremist violent settlers, with the backing of their supporters, continue to attack Palestinians and abuse their human rights,” the statement read. “For too long, violent settlers have been able to act with near impunity, and settlement expansion and creation of outposts continue with the support and facilitation of the government of Israel.”
For the past four years, Israel’s hard-right ruling coalition, which is heavily influenced and led by settler movement leaders and their political allies, has overseen a dramatic surge in new settlement construction across the West Bank. Parallel to this expansion, the territory has seen a sharp rise in violent attacks by settlers against Palestinian residents and their property, with very few perpetrators facing legal consequences. The overwhelming majority of the international community has long maintained that all Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank violates international law, and frames it as one of the core obstacles to a lasting two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
These new coordinated sanctions come as European nations face growing public and political criticism of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and its ongoing land policies in the West Bank. Unlike the sweeping, economy-wide sanctions imposed on states such as Iran and Russia, the new measures remain narrowly targeted, leaving broad bilateral trade including military arms transactions completely unaffected. Each participating nation implemented its own specific set of restrictions under the coordinated framework.
As part of its contribution to the sanctions, France has issued an entry ban against Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right religious party leader who has spearheaded the government’s aggressive settlement expansion agenda. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot confirmed the ban in a social media post, noting it targets individuals “those responsible for the intensification of settlement activity and violence in the West Bank.”
Smotrich, who recently ordered the eviction of a long-established Palestinian hamlet in the West Bank, openly framed the eviction as a retaliatory response to unconfirmed reports that he could face an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) based in The Hague over alleged war crimes. The ICC does not publicly confirm the existence of pending arrest warrants or investigation requests.
Barrot outlined that Smotrich, in his role overseeing Israeli settlement policy, is “actively promoting” the unilateral annexation of the West Bank, further expansion of Israeli settlements, the re-establishment of Israeli settlements in Gaza, and economic policies designed to force the collapse of the Palestinian Authority. “These are policies that the overwhelming majority of the international community cannot accept,” Barrot added. Beyond the entry ban on Smotrich, France has also barred four leaders of pro-settlement extremist groups and 21 individual settlers accused of perpetrating violence against Palestinians from entering French territory.
The United Kingdom also joined the action, with Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper telling the House of Commons that the U.K. was imposing sanctions on six entities and multiple individuals linked to settlement financing and settler violence. “We have targeted some of the most notorious individuals, the most significant settler entities, and the extremist figures in the Israeli cabinet who are inciting these acts,” Cooper said.
Israeli officials have pushed back fiercely against the new measures. Israel’s Foreign Ministry described the sanctions as “disgraceful measures” that “only serve to fuel that antisemitism.” Ahead of the official announcement, Israel’s Ambassador to France Joshua Zarka told The Associated Press that the sanctions would ultimately backfire. “Sanctioning government entities or government-connected entities is not helping in any way. On the contrary, it is actually helping those extremists,” Zarka said.
The six-nation action follows new sanctions implemented recently by the 27-member European Union, which targeted both Hamas leaders and Israeli settler organizations and their leadership. Today, more than 700,000 Israeli residents live in settlements across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, territories Israel captured from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War that Palestinians claim as the core of their future independent state.
This report included contributions from multiple Associated Press journalists across Brussels, London, Paris, The Hague, and Ramallah.