The European Union’s 27 foreign ministers agreed Monday to sanction leaders of the Palestinian militant group Hamas and individuals and organizations tied to the Israeli settler movement, a decision diplomats described as a response to intensifying violence in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
The political agreement, reached in Brussels, does not itself name the targets. A committee will now finalize a draft list of which organizations and individuals face asset freezes and travel bans. Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that the list is expected to include settler organizations Amana, Nachala, Hashomer Yosh, and Regavim, as well as leaders Daniella Weiss, Meir Deutsch, and Avichai Suissa.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas posted on social media that the ministers had agreed that extremism and violence should carry consequences. “It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery,” she said.
The unanimous vote marks a break from years of impasse. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, had repeatedly vetoed sanctions targeting settlers. Orbán lost power in April to Péter Magyar, removing the single largest block on EU action.
“The EU cannot be bystanders in the face of escalating violence and persistent breaches of international law,” Irish Foreign Minister Helen McEntee posted.
The settler movement responded with defiance. Weiss, a leader of Nachala often described as the godmother of the settlement movement, told The Associated Press she had received no formal notification and called the sanctions “ridiculous” and the situation “banal,” saying the decision would not stop the movement. Regavim said it considers the EU sanctions “a badge of honor.”
Israel’s government, dominated by far-right proponents of settlement expansion, also pushed back. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the sanctions “arbitrary and political” in a social media post and said the government would “continue to stand for the right of Jews to settle in the heart of our homeland.” Key settlement advocates in the cabinet include Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who formulates settlement policy, and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the police.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said the ministers had decided to sanction both Hamas leaders and figures in the settler movement. “These most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay,” he said, describing Hamas as “a terrorist movement that must imperatively be disarmed and excluded from any participation in the future of Palestine.”
The decision comes amid worsening violence in the West Bank. At least 40 Palestinians have been killed there since the start of the year, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, including 11 killed by settlers — a figure that already exceeds the total for all of 2025. Rights groups and international observers have documented arson, vandalism, and the displacement of farming communities near settlements and outposts.
The Israeli human rights group Peace Now said the EU decision was “a call to the Israeli public to open its eyes and see the reality we have created through decades of control and settlement in the occupied territories.”
Despite the agreement, the ministers failed to advance stronger economic pressure. A French-Swedish proposal to sever West Bank settlement products from EU markets stalled after Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said his government needed more time to study it. The bloc also did not agree to suspend its trade agreement with Israel.
“The EU’s narrowed the scope of action now to individuals and to a few entities, and in doing that it’s ignoring the far more systemic issues at play,” said Hugh Lovatt, a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “There’s so much that you can and should be doing.”
Human Rights Watch associate EU director Claudio Francavilla called the sanctions “a step in the right direction” but cautioned that more was “needed for the EU to comply with international law.”
Dutch Foreign Minister Tom Berendsen said individual nations could ban settlement goods on their own if the process stalls in Brussels, while Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares Bueno urged a vote to gauge support. “We have been talking about measures for too long,” he said.