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The European Union has sanctioned four entities and three individuals it calls “extremist Israeli settlers,” accusing them of abusing Palestinians’ rights across the occupied West Bank.

Getting into it: The Council of the European Union announced Thursday that it had added the settlers and the organizations backing them to its Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime, accusing them of violating Palestinians’ rights to property, education, freedom of religion, family life, and physical integrity. The measures hit those listed with an asset freeze and bar EU citizens and companies from providing them funds, while the individuals are also banned from traveling. With the new additions, the regime (established in 2020 to target acts like genocide, crimes against humanity, and other grave abuses) now covers 136 people and 41 entities worldwide.

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The EU laid out specific allegations against each. It accused the Nachala Settlement Movement and its director Daniella Weiss of facilitating “coercive acts that lead to the forced displacement of Palestinians” through outposts built on privately owned land, and the NGO Regavim and its director Meir Deutsch of lobbying for the demolition of Palestinian property, including an EU-funded Palestinian primary school near Bethlehem.

The group Hashomer Yosh and its president Avichai Suissa were cited for recruiting armed volunteers and supporting at least 28 violent outposts, while the Amana cooperative was accused of financing and enabling at least 30 such outposts.

The sanctions had been long delayed, held up by the government of former Hungarian premier Viktor Orban before his successor, Peter Magyar, lifted the veto earlier this month. In a separate move the same day, the Council said it would also widen its Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad sanctions to reach members of Hamas’s Political Bureau who “promote, defend, or justify acts of violence.”

Israel rejected the measures outright, with its Foreign Ministry insisting on X that “the targeted individuals and organizations are simply engaged in settlement activities, with no connection to violence,” and accused the EU of pursuing “a purely political agenda to deny Jews the right to live in Judea and Samaria.” Calling the move “hypocrisy at its best,” the ministry said that “Israel will never accept any attempt to deny Jews the right to live in their historical homeland.”

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