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The European Union has approved new sanctions targeting Israeli settler organizations and Hamas leaders following months of internal deadlock.
Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, the EU has been trying to sanction extremist Israeli settlers for over a year following a surge in violent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. According to the UN, more than 1,800 settler attacks were documented in 2025 alone, and more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the war in Gaza. The EU previously approved two earlier rounds of sanctions starting in 2024 (after following the Biden administration’s path on the issue), but this latest round was held up for months by former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, a close ally of Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who used his veto power to block the move until losing his April election to Peter Magyar, who was sworn in Saturday. Notably, Trump reversed the US sanctions against violent Israeli settlers on his first day back in office in January 2025.
What’s going on now: The 27 EU foreign ministers met in Brussels Monday and unanimously approved the new sanctions package, which targets seven Israeli settlers and settler organizations along with an undisclosed number of Hamas leaders. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot confirmed the dual nature of the sanctions package on X. He said, “It’s done. The European Union is sanctioning today the main Israeli organizations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonization of the West Bank, as well as their leaders. These most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay.”
On the Hamas side, Barrot said the EU was sanctioning “the main leaders of Hamas, responsible for the worst antisemitic massacre in our history since the Shoah during which 51 French people lost their lives, a terrorist movement that must imperatively be disarmed and excluded from any participation in the future of Palestine.” An EU official told the Times of Israel that the Hamas sanctions were not bundled in to draw a moral equivalence but rather served as a condition some member states required to support the settler sanctions in the first place. The number and names of sanctioned Hamas leaders have not been made public.
While the EU has not officially released the full list of sanctioned settlers and organizations, Israeli media have identified them as including the major settler organizations Amana, Nachala, HaShomer Yosh, and Regavim, along with several of their leaders: Daniella Weiss (head of Nachala and widely regarded as the “godmother” of the settler movement, already sanctioned by the UK), Meir Deutsch (CEO of Regavim), and Avichai Suissa (former chief of HaShomer Yosh, who was sanctioned by the US under Biden in 2024 before being removed under Trump).
Those sanctioned will have their assets frozen and be banned from entering the EU, but the more significant impact is financial: any entity tied to the EU is barred from maintaining financial ties to or funding the sanctioned groups, which complicates operations not just for Israeli banks but also for the Israeli government itself, which actively funds most of the organizations on the list.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the EU’s move. He said, “As Israel and the US are ‘doing Europe’s dirty work’ by fighting for civilization against jihadist lunatics in Iran and elsewhere, the European Union exposed its moral bankruptcy by drawing a false symmetry between Israeli citizens and Hamas terrorists.”
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir labeled the EU “antisemitic” outright. “To expect the antisemitic union to make a moral decision is like expecting the sun to rise in the west. While our enemies perpetrate attacks and murder Jews, the European Union is trying to tie the hands of those who defend themselves. The settlement enterprise will not be deterred. We will continue to build, to plant, to defend, and to settle throughout the entire land of Israel.”
This all comes as the EU stopped short of stronger economic measures against Israel that some member states (led by Spain, Ireland, and the Netherlands) have been pushing for, including a proposed ban on products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and a suspension of the EU’s broader trade and cooperation agreement with Israel.
