UK, Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, Norway Sanction Networks Financing West Bank Settler Violence

On June 9, 2026, the United Kingdom, alongside Australia, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Norway announced coordinated sanctions targeting networks financing and executing settler violence in the occupied West Bank, while France also banned Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich from entering the country.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the sanctions were imposed to hold accountable those responsible for “intensifying colonization and violence in the West Bank,” and British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper told Parliament that “settler expansion and violence is illegal and a fundamental threat to the viability of a two-state solution.”

20 Minutes

Palestinian campaigners and rights groups said the measures still fell short of addressing what they describe as state-backed complicity in the occupation, with Amnesty International UK arguing the campaign left senior officials untouched.

Amnesty International UK crisis response manager Kristyan Benedict said, “Today’s announcements are a step, but they are not enough,” after the sanctions were announced earlier in the day.

Benedict added that targeting settler financing networks while “the ministers who run this campaign face no consequences is not meaningful accountability,” and urged the UK to sanction Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials.

The sanctions package, as described by Amnesty International UK, targeted networks “financing and enabling settler attacks” against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, while Benedict argued that the “architects” of settler violence were not held accountable.

Benedict said the UK must sanction Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Settlement Affairs Minister Orit Strock, Defense Minister Israel Katz and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, noting that Netanyahu and Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) under arrest warrants over “war crimes and crimes against humanity” in Gaza.

Al Jazeera

In a separate framing, Al Jazeera reported that the UK targeted six entities and one individual, while France banned Smotrich, three settler group leaders, and 21 settlers from entering the country.

Christian Aid’s head of UK influencing Jennifer Larbie described the scope as “derisory” and said it was “too little too late,” while Mustafa Barghouti told Al Jazeera Arabic that Western leaders were trying to cover up shortcomings with “low-value measures.”

Al Jazeera also quoted Benedict warning that isolating individual actors risks deflecting from broader institutional penalties, stating that “It leaves the architects untouched,” and calling on the UK to sanction Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

Beyond the sanctions themselves, Amnesty International said world governments should stop cooperating with the occupation and halt trade and cooperation that entrench it, arguing that limited steps against settler leaders are “completely insufficient” to address what it calls a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign.

Amnesty disclosed figures saying occupation authorities and settlers have “wholly or partially displaced 117 Palestinian Bedouin and pastoral communities” in various areas of the West Bank during the period spanning 2023 to 2026.

In Ramallah, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry welcomed the European Union’s decision to impose sanctions on extremist Israeli settlement organizations and individuals, calling it “a significant step toward strengthening accountability mechanisms,” while insisting it remains “not enough unless complemented by practical and deterrent measures.”

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry urged the EU to “fully suspend the association agreement with Israel,” activate “the principle of universal jurisdiction,” boycott settlement goods, and impose measures to hold those involved in terrorism accountable.

Al Jazeera reported that campaigners argued the sanctions do not match the scale of the crisis, with Mustafa Barghouti saying the Israeli government itself “plans, funds, and executes settlement expansion,” and Kristyan Benedict warning that leaving senior officials unpunished “leaves the architects untouched.”