The E.U. sanctioned settlers for ‘human rights abuses against Palestinians’

Ephrat Livni, New York Times, July 16, 2024

Two men in olive-green fatigues look out over a rocky landscape. One holds a rifle and the other looks through binoculars. — Israeli army reservists near the settlement of Tekoa in the West Bank in October. Tamir Kalifa for The New York Times

A surge in Jewish settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is raising the ire of some in the international community as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government officially expands its hold on the occupied territory by claiming more land and quietly assists extremists with tacit military support, according to rights activists.

The European Union on Monday sanctioned five Israeli settlers, two outposts and an extremist group that were “responsible for serious and systematic human rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank,” the European Council, the E.U. body that represents the heads of the member governments, said in a statement. The United States last week also imposed sanctions on Israelis and entities in the West Bank that the State Department said had incited violence against Palestinians or encroached on Palestinian land.

Peace Now, an Israeli organization that tracks Jewish settlements, responded to the European sanctions by accusing the Israeli government of failing to enforce its own laws and of being complicit in the settler violence.

The West Bank is home to about 2.7 million Palestinians and more than 500,000 settlers. Israel seized control of the territory from Jordan in 1967 during a war with three Arab states, and Israelis have since settled there with both tacit and explicit government approval, though the international community largely considers settlements illegal, and many outposts also violate Israeli law. Settlers are governed by Israeli civil law while their Palestinian neighbors are subject to Israeli military law.

Palestinians have long argued that the settlements are a creeping annexation that turns land needed for any future independent Palestinian state into an unmanageable patchwork. But the war with Hamas in Gaza has given Israel’s right-wing government, intent on West Bank expansion, a way to bolster settlers who oppose the creation of a Palestinian state under the guise of providing added security amid heightened tensions, some rights groups say.

The army has shut down “so many roads” in the West Bank that thousands of acres of land have become off limits to Palestinians, Hagit Ofran of Peace Now’s “Settlement Watch” project said in a phone interview. The military erects gates in the name of security, but the result is that it shuts off Palestinians’ access to large areas they rely on, she added, and that ultimately advances settlers’ aims.

Notably, there are also more Israeli troops stationed in the area than before the war. “In every settlement, you now have reserve soldiers who are settlers and who take extremist measures against Palestinians,” Ms. Ofran said. “Settler soldiers are actually an armed militia.”

Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, is a settler himself and responsible for extremist policies meant to expand Israel’s hold over the West Bank. Mr. Smotrich is taking away much of the military’s authority there and instead putting settlers in charge of civil administration, effectively taking control, Ms. Ofran noted. In a secretly recorded speech on June 9, Mr. Smotrich outlined this carefully orchestrated program to take authority over the West Bank out of the hands of the Israeli military and turn it over to civilians working for him while deflecting international scrutiny.

From the perspective of some in the Israeli military, settler violence is a threat to Israel’s security. Retired Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fox, former chief of Israel’s Central Command, which oversees the West Bank, rebuked the Israeli government’s policies in the area and condemned the rising tide of “nationalist crime” in his departure speech last week.

But as the military’s presence in the West Bank has increased since Oct. 7, so have violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops meant to maintain order there, further escalating tensions in the already fraught region.

Israeli forces shot a man dead in the West Bank on Tuesday during clashes in Al Bireh, according to Wafa, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel’s military said on social media on Tuesday that it was chasing people who fired on a car with Israeli civilians inside in Ramin, a village in the northeast of the West Bank, adding that the civilians had been lightly injured in the attack and had been evacuated for treatment. It gave no further details.

Israeli forces have killed more than 530 West Bank Palestinians since the war in Gaza began, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which tracks West Bank violence on a weekly basis. In its latest update, the agency said that the Israeli military on July 9 killed a 13-year old Palestinian boy in Deir Abu Mash’al village near Ramallah and injured three other boys.

The Israeli military, in response to a query about the incident, said in a statement that since Oct. 7, there had been “a significant increase” in attempted terrorist attacks in the West Bank and nearby area — more than 2,000 in total — and that it is “actively conducting operations” to prevent terrorism. The military confirmed the U.N. report of violence on July 9, but not a death or the involvement of any children in the confrontation, stating that “masked terrorists hurled rocks” at Israeli military vehicles and a “soldier in the area responded with live fire, hitting one of the terrorists.”

Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Rawan Sheikh Ahmad contributed reporting.

Israeli Strikes, Including One on a School Turned Shelter, Kill More Than 20.

A man sifts through burned debris. — Inspecting damage at a construction material depot after a reported overnight attack by Israeli settlers, near the village of Bazariya in the West Bank on Friday. Jaafar Ashtiyeh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The Israeli military said it was targeting militants operating in the school.

Two Israeli strikes killed more than 20 people in separate parts of Gaza on Tuesday, one of which targeted a United Nations school turned shelter, according to Palestinian health officials in the enclave.

Palestinian paramedics evacuated at least five killed and eight wounded at the school, in Nuseirat in central Gaza, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society emergency service.

The Israeli military said it had targeted militants who had operated inside the school, which during the war has become a shelter for displaced people seeking safety. Hamas “systematically violates international law, exploiting civilian structures and the population as human shields,” the military said.

It was the sixth U.N.-run educational institution in Gaza to be hit in just 10 days, according to UNRWA, the agency for assisting Palestinian refugees. Last Tuesday, at least 27 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike near the entrance to a U.N. school used as a shelter on the outskirts of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

Roughly 17 people were killed on Tuesday in a separate Israeli strike in Mawasi, a coastal area that Israel has designated a safer zone, the Gaza Health Ministry said in a statement. Those figures do not distinguish between civilians and combatants and could not be independently verified.

In a statement, the Israeli military said its aircraft had struck an Islamic Jihad commander in Khan Younis. It added that it was looking into reports that civilians had been wounded in the strike.

Since Oct. 7, Israeli aircraft have struck 37,000 targets in Gaza, laying waste to wide swathes of the enclave’s cities and towns, the military said on Tuesday. More than 38,000 people have been killed in the enclave during the Israeli military campaign against Hamas, now in its 10th month, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

In a separate statement on Tuesday, the Israeli military said that since the war began, roughly half of the leadership of the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, has been “eliminated,” and about “14,000 terrorists eliminated or apprehended.” Hamas was estimated to have about 30,000 fighters before the war, but critics have accused Israel of labeling any adolescent or adult male killed in Gaza as a Hamas member.

Over the weekend, Israeli forces bombarded an area of Mawasi with heavy munitions in an attempt to kill Mohammed Deif, the Qassam leader. Scores of Gazans were killed in the attack, but Mr. Deif’s fate remained unclear.

Last week, Israeli negotiators led by the country’s Mossad intelligence chief traveled to Qatar for meetings with mediators on a possible cease-fire. But hopes for a deal — which would also see the release of the remaining 120 living and dead Israeli hostages held in Gaza — have since dimmed.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel emphasized that he would adhere to Israel’s demands, despite growing international calls for an immediate truce. He said the Israeli offensive was continuing to push Hamas to make more concessions.

“Hamas is feeling the pressure,” said Mr. Netanyahu. “They are feeling it because we are striking them, eliminating their senior commanders and thousands of terrorists.”

Nader Ibrahim contributed reporting.

— Aaron Boxerman

KEY DEVELOPMENTS

An Israeli strike hits another school turned shelter, the Palestine Red Crescent says, and other news.

An Israeli strike hit a United Nations school building that was being used as a shelter by thousands of displaced people, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, which said that five people had been killed and eight others wounded on Tuesday. The Israeli military said in a statement that the strike was aimed at fighters who had planned attacks against its troops and said “numerous steps” were taken to lessen the risk to civilians. Israeli forces have repeatedly struck in and around schools turned shelters in recent weeks, contending that Hamas has used them for military purposes.
Israel will begin the process of drafting some ultra-Orthodox men for military service next week, the military said on Tuesday. The Supreme Court had ordered the military to begin calling up ultra-Orthodox religious students — long given a pass so as to study scripture — after an order extending the exemption lapsed. Many Israelis resent that the ultra-Orthodox do not shoulder the burden of military service. Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox students are of draft age, but Israeli officials have said the process is likely to be gradual.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired several rockets toward the Israeli border town of Sderot, setting off air raid sirens there for the first time in days, the Israeli authorities said on Tuesday. Israel’s aerial defenses intercepted one rocket, while two others fell in open areas, a spokesman for the Sderot municipality said. There were no immediate reports of any major casualties. The near-constant missile barrages from Gaza that characterized the early days of the war have slowed to a trickle, particularly since the Israeli offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah began in May.
An attack apparently by an Israeli drone in Syria, near the border with Lebanon, has killed a Syrian businessman who was under sanctions from the United States, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor. The businessman, Baraa’ al-Qaterjy, who helped fund Syrian militant groups, had been driving on Monday on a road between Beirut and Damascus when his vehicle was hit, the observatory said. Israel has conducted numerous strikes in Syria in recent months in its campaign against forces backed by Iran, but it rarely comments on them.
Senator J.D. Vance of Ohio, Donald J. Trump’s newly chosen running mate, has been a steadfast supporter of Israelthroughout the country’s war in Gaza, defending its wartime policies in the face of growing criticism over the civilian death toll. When members of the Senate considered a bill providing military aide to both Israel and Ukraine, Mr. Vance led a group of senators proposing legislation to send money only to Israel. Echoing the words of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, he said the country needed to eliminate Hamas after the terrorist group’s deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
More than 100,000 people in Gaza are believed to have contracted hepatitis A since last Oct. 7, the World Health Organization said on Monday. The virus is often transmitted through person-to-person contact or contaminated food — and the United Nations has warned of the risks in Gaza, where many people have fled their homes and lack access to clean water or working toilets. The W.H.O. said that “the entire population of Gaza is at risk” because of violence, lack of food and the spread of disease.

Civilian casualties in Gaza remain unacceptably high, the State Department says.

A man in a bloody T-shirt holds a small body wrapped in a white sheet. — A father holding the body of his son in Deir al Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, this month.Credit…Ramadan Abed/Reuters

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has expressed “serious concerns” to two top Israeli officials about the death toll in Gaza, the State Department says.

Mr. Blinken expressed his concern during a meeting on Monday with the Israeli national security adviser, Tzachi Hanegbi; and Ron Dermer, who is a key adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, a State Department spokesman said.

“We have seen civilian casualties come down from the high points of the conflict,” the spokesman, Matthew Miller, said. “But they still remain unacceptably high. We continue to see far too many civilians killed in this conflict.”

The Health Ministry in Gaza says that more than 38,000 people have died in the territory since Oct. 7, when Hamas led an attack on Israel in which around 1,200 people were killed, according to the Israeli authorities. The ministry’s count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. On Tuesday, it reported dozens of deaths in the previous 24 hours.

The U.S. government has repeatedly criticized Mr. Netanyahu’s administration over civilian casualties in Gaza, but critics of President Biden have said that Washington undermines that message by continuing to supply Israel with weapons for use in the conflict.

The Israeli military argues that it does all it can to spare civilians but that it is fighting an adversary that hides within the civilian population and sets up military bases in densely populated areas.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said that 90 people were killed on Saturday, half of them women and children, and that 300 other people were wounded when Israel conducted a major airstrike in southern Gaza targeting a top Hamas military commander, Muhammad Deif, who is considered one of the architects of the Oct. 7 attack.

The secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, called on Monday for a cease-fire, saying said that the “extreme level of fighting and devastation in Gaza is incomprehensible and inexcusable.”

“Nowhere is safe,” he said. “Everywhere is a potential killing zone.”

— Matthew Mpoke BiggShow more

Hamas’s leader in Gaza is facing pressure to end the war, the C.I.A. director says

Sinwar, wearing a suit, waves with other men in suits nearby. A backdrop says “World Jerusalem Day” in Arabic. — Yahya Sinwar at an event in Gaza City last year.Credit…Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times

The C.I.A. director told a closed-door gathering that the leader of Hamas in Gaza is under increased pressure from his military commanders to end the war with Israel and accept a truce and the release of hostages, according to a person briefed on his remarks.

The remarks by William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, are a more pointed version of comments American officials have been making privately and publicly. Mr. Burns said the internal pressure on Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, has been building for the last two weeks, as commanders and ordinary Palestinians are tiring of the fight. Mr. Sinwar is still believed to be hiding in tunnels under Khan Younis.

But Mr. Burns said that it was the responsibility of both parties, the Israelis and the Palestinians, to take advantage of the moment. The C.I.A. declined to discuss Mr. Burns’s comments, which were made at an annual conference of business leaders held in Sun Valley, Idaho, by Allen & Company, an investment bank.

Burns, wearing a coat and tie and holding a folder, stands among other people dressed formally. — William J. Burns, director of the C.I.A. Credit…Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press

Administration officials have expressed some optimism that a deal can be reached. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said in a recent interview that he sees a path forward for the talks.

Mr. Burns, whose comments were first reported by CNN, has led the American team in negotiations to end the war in Gaza and secure the release of hostages held by Hamas. Both Israel and Hamas have agreed to a framework deal that was hammered out by the United States, Qatar and Egypt.

But U.S. officials do not believe that there will be any final agreement on the deal until after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel visits Washington next week.

Administration officials have said that Hamas has agreed to yield control of Gaza to an independent group. But other American officials are skeptical about whether Hamas’s willingness to cede power is permanent.

— Julian E. Barnes