AA/ Jerusalem/ Zein Khalil
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Monday that increased settlement activity was an appropriate response to EU sanctions on West Bank settlers, Jewish media reported.
Citing Smotrich, the Jewish newspaper “Haaretz” reported the following: “The decision of the European Union is the product of a false international boycott campaign against the State of Israel.”
“If there is violence (by settlers), it will be dealt with by the Israeli justice system,” he argued, adding: “There is only one appropriate Zionist response to this statement by the European Union, and that is strengthening and consolidation.” Colonization”.
Smotrich’s statements are the first comments by a senior Israeli official regarding the EU’s decision.
On Monday evening, the European Union decided to impose individual sanctions on Israeli settlements involved in acts of violence against Palestinians.
The EU’s foreign affairs and security policy chief, Josep Borrell, said in a statement after a meeting of EU foreign ministers that 27 member states had reached an agreement on the imposition of sanctions.
Borrell explained that the system included banning entry into the territory of the European Union and freezing or confiscating assets located within the European Union, without disclosing the names of those affected by the sanctions: “I don’t remember the names,” he told reporters.
Since the start of Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, settlers have intensified their attacks on the West Bank.
According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission (government), settlers carried out 2,410 attacks on Palestinians and their property in the West Bank in 2023, killing 22 Palestinians and displacing 25 Bedouin communities, including 22 On October 7, 2023, after a surprise attack by the Palestinian resistance movement.
More than 720,000 settlers live in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.
The United Nations and most of the international community consider the colonization of territories occupied since 1967 illegal and warn that it undermines the chances of a two-state solution to the conflict.
*Translated from Arabic by Malek Jomni
Source: AA
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