(Washington) The United States announced new visa restrictions on Israelis who committed abuses in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, calling on Israel to do more to hold those responsible for the violence “accountable.”
“This is a general trend of increasing violence that we have unfortunately seen over the last several months and the need for Israel to do more to hold people accountable for their actions,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in announcing the new restrictions, which bar those targeted and their relatives from traveling to the United States.
The official agreed that “the Israeli government has taken some steps to quell settler violence in the West Bank.” But, he added, “these steps have not been sufficient.”
The restrictions announced Wednesday include a former Israeli army soldier, Elor Azaria, who served a nine-month prison sentence after being convicted of manslaughter for shooting dead a wounded Palestinian assailant in 2016.
Other people are also targeted, but they have not been identified, as US law prohibits their names from being made public depending on the circumstances.
PHOTO MUSSA ISSA QAWASMA, REUTERS
Israeli machinery demolishes a Palestinian home near Hebron in the occupied West Bank on July 11, 2024.
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, violence has intensified in the West Bank.
The United States has already imposed several rounds of financial sanctions against more than two dozen individuals or entities accused of violence against Palestinian civilians, and imposed visa restrictions on dozens of people.
The sanctions also targeted so-called “wildcat” settlement outposts built without permission from Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967. About 490,000 Israelis live in West Bank settlements, among three million Palestinians.
Asked about their effectiveness, the spokesman said that Israeli officials had complained to Washington about this policy of sanctions, intended in part, according to him, to put pressure on Israel.
UN chief denounces Israeli policy in occupied West Bank
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday slammed Israeli policies in the occupied West Bank as “a stake in the heart” for the two-state solution.
“Recent developments drive a stake through the heart of any prospect of a two-state solution,” Guterres said in a statement read by his chief of staff Courtenay Rattray at a Security Council meeting.
“The geography of the occupied West Bank continues to be altered by Israeli administrative and legal measures. The seizure of large plots of land in strategic areas and changes in planning, land management and governance are expected to accelerate the expansion of settlements significantly,” he lamented, denouncing the extension of “Israeli sovereignty over this occupied territory.”
He also condemned a series of “punitive measures against the Palestinian Authority” and Israel’s legalization of five settlement outposts.
PHOTO YUKI IWAMURA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres
The outposts, so-called “wildcat” settlements, are built without permission from Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
“We must change direction. All settlement activity must cease immediately,” Guterres pleaded, repeating that settlements are “a flagrant violation of international law and a key obstacle to peace.”
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, violence has intensified in the West Bank.
Antonio Guterres reiterated his call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the unconditional release of all hostages. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza is a moral stain on all of us,” he said.
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel launched an attack that killed 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
In response, Israel launched an air and then ground offensive in the devastated and famine-threatened Palestinian territory, which has so far killed 38,794 people, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.