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EU foreign ministers agreed on Monday on a new round of sanctions targeting Israeli settlers and organizations involved in illegal settlement activity and violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The decision triggered an immediate Israeli counter-escalation, with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich presenting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a plan to seize strategic West Bank land, and Netanyahu accusing the EU of "moral bankruptcy."
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas confirmed the decision on X, saying ministers had "given the go-ahead to sanction Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians."
"It was high time we moved from deadlock to delivery. Extremisms and violence carry consequences," she added.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced the outcome with a single word: "Done!", saying the EU was sanctioning "the main Israeli organizations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonization of the West Bank, as well as their leaders."
He said the most "serious" and "intolerable" acts must cease without delay.
The EU also adopted new sanctions against senior Hamas figures in the same session.
Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot attributed the breakthrough to Hungary's political shift. "After months of deadlock, thanks to the change of government in Budapest, the EU today decided on new additional sanctions against violent pro-settler Israelis and settler organizations, as well as senior Hamas figures," he wrote on X.
"Extremism and violence carry consequences. Illegal settlements and the surge in settler violence against Palestinians are unacceptable and undermine the possibility of a two-state solution," he added.
Netanyahu responded sharply through his office, claiming the EU was demonstrating "moral bankruptcy" at the very moment Israel and the United States were "doing Europe's dirty work" by striking Iran.
He argued that sanctions on settlers in the West Bank, which he characterized as Jewish land, were "unacceptable."
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called settlement activity a "historical and moral right," while Smotrich went further: "European hypocrisy knows no bounds. No one will force the State of Israel to pursue a policy of national suicide."
He presented a plan to Netanyahu to reclassify strategic West Bank lands from Areas A and B—currently under Palestinian administrative or security control under the Oslo II framework—into Area C, which is under full Israeli authority and already comprises approximately 60% of the West Bank.
"The West Bank is Israel's security belt, and it is time to make it clear to the world that anyone who tries to weaken our control over it will face dire consequences," Smotrich said.
He also called for strengthening settlements and deepening Israeli control over what he described as "Israel's land."
Netanyahu separately delayed a parliamentary vote on a bill, brought by coalition partner Limor Son Har-Melech of the far-right Jewish Power Party, that would cancel the Oslo Accords.
Foreign ministers of several EU member states went beyond welcoming the settler sanctions and called for the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement.
Spain's Jose Manuel Albares said the association agreement "must be suspended while it continues like this."
Slovenia's Tanja Fajon said she regretted the lack of EU consensus to freeze it.
Ireland's minister said EU action must continue to "protect the viability of the two-state solution."
The European Parliament's Left Group called the sanctions "a pitiful fraction of what is required," saying the Association Agreement should be suspended immediately.
Lynn Boylan, chair of the European Parliament's delegation for relations with Palestine, said Israel acts with impunity "because it believes the EU will do nothing."
According to Palestinian official figures, since October 2023, more than 1,155 Palestinians have been killed, approximately 11,750 injured and nearly 22,000 arrested in the occupied West Bank as a result of attacks by Israeli settlers and Israeli military forces.
Approximately 750,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, including around 250,000 in East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian estimates.
All settlements are considered illegal under international law.
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