Even government figures have been targeted in recent Western actions. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a son of the settler movement, was sanctioned<\/a> by the United Kingdom, Canada and several other countries for his alleged role in supporting or enabling violence in the West Bank, highlighting how the settlement project has the support of the highest echelons of the Israeli state.<\/p>\n Overall, the nonchalant response from the targeted figures and entities suggests that none of the EU measures will do anything to stop settlement expansion or make individuals accountable for the growing wave of violence against Palestinians.<\/p>\n Ironically, the largely toothless measures might instead become a source of domestic prestige for their leaders, analysts say, as few would expect these hardline settler figures to spend their summers in Paris or London and thus be affected by the sanctions. Instead, a wave of terror in the occupied West Bank will likely continue, with the tacit support of the government.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Endemic violence<\/p>\n In the eyes of many activists and observers who spoke to Al Jazeera, the EU\u2019s focus on group and individual \u201cviolations\u201d falls far short of articulating the scale of the highly coordinated settler attacks or the extent to which the state and society support them.<\/p>\n Following the Hamas-led attack of October 2023, United Nations and human rights monitors have documented systemic lethal settler attacks in places such as the South Hebron Hills<\/a>, where residents of villages like Susiya and Umm al-Khair have been killed or seriously injured in collective incursions.<\/p>\n In the northern West Bank<\/a>, Palestinian residents of villages around Nablus and Ramallah have seen their homes, vehicles and olive groves torched during nighttime settler raids. Entire Bedouin herding communities<\/a> in the Jordan Valley have also been forcibly displaced following sustained campaigns of intimidation and violence.<\/p>\n All of this underscores the depth and breadth of settler activity, which, according to people on the ground, has the direct support of the Israeli government.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s gotten much worse since October 2023. They now have the courage to attack into the heart of densely populated Palestinian villages. I see them, they came into the heart of my village outside Ramallah, they feel safe to do so,\u201d Tahseen Alayan, deputy director of Al-Haq, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you buy a sheep, they will steal it. If you build a house, they will destroy it. If you buy a car, they will burn it.\u201d<\/p>\n Examples of Israeli government complicity in these settler raids are not hard to find, and the statistics indicate collective efforts to entrench Israeli control over the West Bank, which has been occupied since 1967.<\/p>\n Israeli forces and settlers are accused of killing an estimated<\/a> 1,168 people in the occupied West Bank since October 2023 and injuring a further 12,666 Palestinians. Another 33,000 people have been displaced, while Israel has also detained nearly 23,000 Palestinians in the West Bank during this period, many without charge.<\/p>\n \u201cThe violence does not happen in a vacuum,\u201d Alayan continued. \u201cThis is an extension of the Israeli government; settlement is at the core of their identity. They are protected by the government and by the occupying services, and they freely admit it.\u201d<\/p>\n A tragic incident that comes to mind is settler Yinon Levi<\/a>, who allegedly shot dead Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen in Masafer Yatta last year. Despite the murder being captured on video, Levi nevertheless remains at large.<\/p>\n \u201cEven if they are ever prosecuted, the sentences rarely reflect the severity of the crime,\u201d Alayan said. \u201cThese people return to their homes and are seen as heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Entitlement and superiority\u2019<\/p>\n This sense of impunity that settlers appear to be imbued with cannot be detached from the appointment to ministerial positions of leading figures or sympathisers of the settler movement \u2013 notably Ben-Gvir and Smotrich, the latter born<\/a> in an illegal settlement in the occupied Golan Heights.<\/p>\n![\"BE'ERI,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AA-20241021-35975236-35975219-ACTIVIST_JEWS_CELEBRATE_SUKKOT-1729585903.jpg\")
Daniella Weiss, founder of the Nachalot Association, described the EU sanctions as \u201cridiculous\u201d and \u201cbanal\u201d [Enes Canli\/Anadolu Agency]<\/p>\n
![\"Israeli](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AFP__20250814__69HV6DR__v1__HighRes__IsraelPalestinianConflictSettlementPolitics-1755194568.jpg\")
Israeli far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich holds a map of an area near the settlement of Maale Adumim, a land corridor known as E1, outside Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank, on August 14, 2025, after a news conference at the site [Menahem Kahana\/AFP]<\/p>\n![\"Palestinian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/afp_6a1f02d03f2e-1780417232.jpg\")
Palestinian Nazem Saleh Shoman stands inside a pen at a sheep farm that was set on fire the previous night by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian village of Khirbet Abu Falah in the central occupied West Bank [AFP]<\/p>\n