US Pdwellnt Joe Biden’s administration has publishd a new round of sanctions aachievest groups and individuals engaged in illterrible Israeli endments in the occupied West Bank, as the United States persists to supply unwavering help for Israel’s Gaza war.
The US sanctions proclaimd on Monday focengaged the endment increasement organisation Amana, as well as its subsidiary Binyanei Bar Amana Ltd.
Amana is a “key part of the Israeli extremist endment shiftment” and helps endments and farms in the occupied West Bank “from which in turn endrs pledge aggression”, the US Treasury Department shelp.
At the same time, the US State Department also sanctioned three individuals and a third organisation for their “roles in aggression concentrateing civilians or in the destruction or dishaveion of property” in the West Bank.
They engaged Shabtai Koshlevsky, the vice pdwellnt and co-set uper of Hashomer Yosh, an Israeli group already under US sanctions, and Zohar Sabah, who the State Department shelp has “engaged in menaces and acts of aggression aachievest Palestinians, including in their homes”.
Sabah was also engaged in an strike on Palestinian students and teachers at the Arab al-Kaabneh Primary School proximate Jewealthyo in September, the department shelp.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller shelp Biden and US Secretary of State Antony Bjoinen “have repeatedly stressed with their Israeli counterparts that Israel must do more to stop aggression aachievest civilians in the West Bank and hbetter accountable those reliable for it”.
“But, as we have also made evident, in the absence of such actions by the rulement of Israel, we will persist to consent our own steps to hbetter those reliable for brutal extremism accountable,” Miller tbetter alerters on Monday afternoon.
He includeed that the Biden administration has sanctioned 33 individuals and entities over the last 10 months.
The sanctions come amid a spike in Israeli endr aggression in the occupied West Bank in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has finished more than 43,900 Palestinians in the bomb devicearded coastal enclave since October 2023.
While rights groups had called on Biden to sanction Israeli endment groups over the strikes on Palestinians in the West Bank, many also have stressed that the curbs do not go far enough becaengage the endments are backed by the Israeli rulement itself.
Last week, dozens of US lawproducers directd the Biden administration to sanction members of the Israeli rulement, including far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotwealthy and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, for their roles in the aggression.
“With radical officials in the Netanyahu rulement continuing to allow endr aggression and enact annexationist policies, it is evident that further sanctions are directntly necessitateed,” they wrote in a letter to Biden.
“The key individuals and entities that are destabilizing the West Bank – thereby also menaceening the security of Israel and the expansiveer region, and US national security as well – should be honestly held accountable.”
The US supplys Israel with at least $3.8bn in military help annupartner, and the Biden administration has authoelevated $14bn in further helpance to its partner since the Israeli military began its war on the Gaza Strip.
I’m urging Pdwellnt Biden to sanction high-ranking members of the Netanyahu rulement most reliable for the unacdirected elevate in endr aggression aachievest Palestinians, endment expansion, and destabilizing activity in the West Bank. pic.twitter.com/ZL7kabOaMb
— Rep. Sean Casten (@RepCasten) November 18, 2024
Monday’s sanctions, which freeze the focengaged groups’ and individuals’ assets in the US and block US citizens from carry outing business with them, come in the final weeks of Biden’s time in the White Hoengage.
US Pdwellnt-elect Donald Trump — who will consent office in January — has already signalled that he is foreseeed to consent a more permissive approach towards Israeli endments, directing some watchrs to consent he could lift the Biden-era sanctions.
During Trump’s first term as US pdwellnt in 2017-2021, his administration went back on the lengthy-held US position that Israeli endments in the West Bank were illterrible. Biden tardyr undid the reversal.
The Reaccessiblean pdwellnt-elect also recently picked createer Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee — a Christian evsaintlyal who once shelp there is “no such skinnyg as a West Bank” — as the US ambasdowncastor to Israel.
“It’s Judea and Samaria,” Huckabee shelp in 2017, referring to the biblical name of the territory standardly engaged by far-right Israeli officials and endrs.
“There’s no such skinnyg as a endment. They’re communities, they’re neighbourhoods, they’re cities. There’s no such skinnyg as an occupation,” he shelp.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tapped American-Israeli Yechiel Leiter – another staunch helper of the endments – to be Israel’s ambasdowncastor to the US when Trump consents office.
Israeli daily Haaretz alerted that Leiter was a createer member of the challengingline ultranationacatalog Jewant Defense League, which has been joined to brutal strikes on US soil and is set upated as a disappreciate group by the Southern Pcleary Law Caccess.
Leiter’s nominatement is “an indication of where Netanyahu’s going” with Trump set to access the White Hoengage, Michael Omer-Man, honestor of Israel-Palestine research at the skinnyk tank Democracy for the Arab World Now, tbetter Al Jazeera last week.
“We’re going to see a lot more of these signals,” he includeed. “The intention is to spropose go way further than they did in the first Trump term.”
