The UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Norway announced sanctions against two Israeli ministers on Tuesday for ‘repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities’, they said in a joint statement.
Finance minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir will be subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze, the UK foreign ministry said in a statement.
The move comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces growing international criticism over his government’s conduct of the war against Hamas in Gaza.
It also sees the five western countries break from Israel’s closest ally, the United States, in taking action against the two ministers.
Ben Gvir and Smotrich ‘have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights’, the foreign ministers of the five countries said in the joint statement.
‘These actions are not acceptable. This is why we have taken action now — to hold those responsible to account.’
UK Foreign secretary David Lammy said the pair have used ‘horrendous extremist language’ and that he would ‘encourage the Israeli government to disavow and condemn that language’.
Last month, Smotrich said Gaza ‘will be entirely destroyed’ and that civilians ‘will start to leave in great numbers to third countries’.
The UK foreign ministry said in its statement that ‘extremist settlers have carried out over 1,900 attacks against Palestinian civilians since January last year’.
It said it was ‘committed to protecting the viability of a two-state solution and human rights, including by challenging those inciting violence’.
Smotrich, who lives in a settlement in the occupied West Bank, has increasingly called for the annexation of the Palestinian territory.
