Photo: Israeli settler places flag on day of re-establishment of Sa-Nur settlement, evacuated in Israel’s 2005 disengagement, in Sa-Nur in the West Bank, April 19, 2026. REUTERS/Shir Torem

BRUSSELS, May 11 (Reuters)–European Union foreign ministers reached an agreement on Monday on new sanctions targeting violent Israeli settlers in ‌the occupied West Bank, as well as leading Hamas figures, EU ‌foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said.

The sanctions package, which targets three settlers and four settler organizations whose identities have yet to be publicly disclosed, had been blocked for months by the previous Hungarian government, which lost an election last month.

European governments have raised concern about a rise in reports of settler violence against Palestinians ‌in the West Bank.

“It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery,” Kallas said on X. “Extremisms [sic] and violence carry consequences,” she added.

Israeli Foreign ⁠Minister Gideon Sa’ar said on X the EU had “chosen, in an arbitrary and political manner, to impose sanctions on Israeli citizens and entities because of their political views and without any basis.”

“Equally outrageous is the unacceptable comparison the European Union ‌has chosen to make between Israeli citizens and Hamas terrorists. This is a completely distorted moral equivalence,” he added.

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