European Union foreign ministers have agreed to impose sanctions on Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians as well as on members of Hamas, breaking a months-long deadlock after Hungary’s new government lifted a veto put in place under former Prime Minister Viktor Orban, The Washington Post reported.
The measures will include a travel ban and asset freezes on a group of Israeli settlers and organizations and on Hamas members. The decision required unanimity among the bloc’s 27 member states, and had been blocked for months by Orban, the Post said. Orban was voted out of power in April, and his successor, Péter Magyar, dropped Hungary’s opposition, clearing the way for Monday’s agreement.
The sanctions are to take effect once legal and technical work is complete, and the names of the people and organizations to be targeted have not yet been made public. Kaja Kallas, the EU’s chief diplomat, described the targets as “Israeli extremist settlers and entities” and “leading Hamas figures,” WaPo said.
The bloc drafted the sanctions last year amid rising violence and expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, with settlers attacking farming communities, torching property, and seeking to expel Palestinians.
An initial EU proposal would have imposed sanctions on two Israeli cabinet ministers—National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich—whom European officials accuse of inciting violence against Palestinians and who are key figures in a push to annex the Palestinian territory, the newspaper said. Some EU member states expressed reservations about targeting them.
Kallas said larger potential steps, including a French-Swedish proposal to halt trade with illegal Israeli settlements, still lacked sufficient support among EU members. The European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, has proposed suspending some of the trade benefits Israel receives in the EU, such as reduced tariffs, but the approach has so far failed to gain enough backing, according to the report.