WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Thursday announced sanctions on three Israelis and five entities it said were responsible for violence that is displacing Palestinians from their communities in the West Bank.
The targets include Lehava, a right-wing Jewish supremacist group led by the previously sanctioned extremist settler Ben Zion Gopstein. The United States also imposed sanctions on four outposts it said were owned or controlled by sanctioned individuals “who have weaponized them as bases for violent actions to displace Palestinians.”
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller called on the Israeli government to take “immediate steps” to hold them accountable.
“In the absence of such steps, we will continue to impose our own accountability measures,” Miller said.
The new sanctions follow President Joe Biden’s signing of an executive order on Feb. 1 that permits US sanctions on extremist Jewish settlers.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
