US unveils new West Bank sanctions amid calls to target Israeli ministers
The latest sanctions come after nearly 90 Democratic lawmakers urged the administration to penalize Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has announced a slew of new sanctions on Israeli settlers and organizations carrying out attacks and seizing Palestinian property in the West Bank, but it stopped short of sanctioning the ultranationalist Israeli ministers accused of fueling that violence.
The targets on Monday included Amana, a settlement development organization that the Treasury Department said provides financial support to farming outposts and uses them to expand settlements and seize Palestinian land.
Also sanctioned were Eyal Hari Yehuda Company and its owner, Itamar Yehuda Lev, who the State Department said provides pickup trucks and SUVs that have been used in construction activities to expand sanctioned settlements. Other targets included Zohar Sabah, an Israeli settler implicated in a September attack on a Palestinian elementary school in Jericho, and Shabtai Koshlevsky, the co-founder of the US-designated Hashomer Yosh settler group.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement that the Biden administration, now in its waning months, will “continue to promote accountability for those who further destabilize conditions in the West Bank and support extremist violence in the region.”
