US Announces More Sanctions Against Settlers for West Bank Violence

The new restrictions prohibit those targeted and their families from travelling to the US.

 

‘This is a general trend of increasing violence, which we have unfortunately seen in recent months, and the need for Israel to do more to hold people accountable for their actions,’ State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told the press.

He admitted that ‘the Israeli government has already taken some steps to crack down on settler violence in the West Bank’, but added that ‘these steps are not enough’.

The US has already imposed financial sanctions on about 20 people or organizations accused of violence against Palestinian civilians and has imposed visa restrictions on dozens of people.

These sanctions have also targeted the initial outposts of so-called ‘feral’ settlements, built without authorization from the Israeli government, in the West Bank, which has been occupied since 1967.

Around 490,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, among three million Palestinians.