French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced Thursday during a visit to Ramallah that France was preparing a new set of sanctions against Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
“France has been in the process of establishing a first sanctions regime at the European level, which targets individuals or entities, actors or accomplices, in colonization activities,” he declared after a meeting with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas.
“This regime has already been activated twice, and we are working on a third set of sanctions targeting these activities which, once again, are illegal under international law and threaten the political prospect that can guarantee lasting peace for Israel and the Palestinians,” he added.
28 settlers already targeted
In February, France said it had adopted “sanctions” against 28 “extremist Israeli settlers” guilty, according to Paris, of “violence against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank”.
These 28 individuals are “targeted by an administrative ban from French territory”, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Jean-Noël Barrot repeated France's commitment to “a just and lasting peace in the region (which) requires the two-state solution” of Israel and Palestine, and to which Israeli settlements are a major obstacle.
Before his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the head of diplomacy visited the el-Bireh neighborhood, near Ramallah, where nearly twenty cars were set on fire by Israeli settlers early Monday.
After speaking with residents and local officials, he stressed that this neighborhood was an area under the control of the Palestinian Authority, deeming “totally inexcusable” the “attacks by extremist and violent settlers”.
The West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967, has experienced an outbreak of violence since the unprecedented attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023, and the war in the Gaza Strip which has lasted for more than a year.
The UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs recorded in its latest report more than 300 incidents linked to settlers, from October 1 to November 4, in the West Bank.
Around 490,000 settlers live in the West Bank alongside three million Palestinians. Israeli colonization is illegal under international law.
