US President Joe Biden’s administration has issued a new round of sanctions against groups and individuals involved in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, as the United States continues to provide unwavering support for Israel’s Gaza war.
The US sanctions announced on Monday targeted the settlement development organisation Amana, as well as its subsidiary Binyanei Bar Amana Ltd.
Amana is a “key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement” and supports settlements and farms in the occupied West Bank “from which in turn settlers commit violence”, the US Treasury Department said.
At the same time, the US State Department also sanctioned three individuals and a third organisation for their “roles in violence targeting civilians or in the destruction or dispossession of property” in the West Bank.
They included Shabtai Koshlevsky, the vice president and co-founder of Hashomer Yosh, an Israeli group already under US sanctions, and Zohar Sabah, who the State Department said has “engaged in threats and acts of violence against Palestinians, including in their homes”.
Sabah was also involved in an attack on Palestinian students and teachers at the Arab al-Kaabneh Primary School near Jericho in September, the department said.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “have repeatedly stressed with their Israeli counterparts that Israel must do more to stop violence against civilians in the West Bank and hold accountable those responsible for it”.
“But, as we have also made clear, in the absence of such actions by the government of Israel, we will continue to take our own steps to hold those responsible for violent extremism accountable,” Miller told reporters on Monday afternoon.
He added that the Biden administration has sanctioned 33 individuals and entities over the last 10 months.
The sanctions come amid a spike in Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 43,900 Palestinians in the bombarded coastal enclave since October 2023.
While rights groups had called on Biden to sanction Israeli settlement groups over the attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, many also have stressed that the curbs do not go far enough because the settlements are backed by the Israeli government itself.
Last week, dozens of US lawmakers urged the Biden administration to sanction members of the Israeli government, including far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for their roles in the violence.
“With radical officials in the Netanyahu government continuing to enable settler violence and enact annexationist policies, it is clear that further sanctions are urgently needed,” they wrote in a letter to Biden.
“The key individuals and entities that are destabilizing the West Bank – thereby also threatening the security of Israel and the broader region, and US national security as well – should be directly held accountable.”
The US provides Israel with at least $3.8bn in military aid annually,