US imposes sanctions on three Israeli settlers and five organisations

Tsav 9 founder among those sanctioned says punitive measures against her 'harm democracy'

An Israeli soldiers prays at the Eviatar outpost in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. AP

The US imposed sanctions on three Israeli settlers and five organisations on Thursday due to their connection to violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Those named in the latest round of sanctions include Lehava, an organisation led by Ben Zion Gopstein, who has already been sanctioned by the US.

Lehava is accused of being “involved in acts of violent extremism”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. According to the US, the organisation has repeatedly engaged in violence against Palestinians.

“The United States remains deeply concerned about extremist violence and instability in the West Bank, which undermines Israel’s own security,” Mr Miller said.

“We strongly encourage the government of Israel to take immediate steps to hold these individuals and entities accountable.

“In the absence of such steps, we will continue to impose our own accountability measures.”

The sanctions also name four settlement outposts including two farms owned or controlled by Neriya Ben Pazi, who was previously sanctioned by the US for “being responsible for or complicit in, or for having directly or indirectly engaged or attempted to engage in planning, ordering, otherwise directing, or participating in seizure or dispossession of property by private actors, affecting the West Bank”, the State Department said.

The National recently visited Neriya Ben Pazi's farm in the West Bank, a patchwork of tents and herding pens that showed signs of new construction, including a small house.

Mr Ben Pazi declined at the time to speak on how the US sanctions have affected him.

The punitive measures also take aim at Reut Ben Haim and Aviad Shlomo Sarid, the founders of Tsav 9, a group already sanctioned by the US for disrupting aid lorries coming from Jordan from entering Gaza.

“Tsav 9 is a violent extremist organisation that opposes aid being sent to Gaza and has previously blocked humanitarian aid convoys travelling towards the Gaza Strip,” the State Department said.

“Ben Haim is also a chairperson of Tsav 9 and Sarid is responsible for volunteer co-ordination and building new departments within the movement.”

Ms Ben Haim defended the organisation and said it was founded "just so our hostages could come home ... because we wanted to stop this absurdity, of the aid we transfer that goes to Hamas".

"People from all horizons came and participated to our actions: families of hostages, bereaved families, from the north and the south, from the left and the right – they all came and participated and we did it with a zero-tolerance policy to violence and really in the most legitimate of actions," she said.

"We now have sanctions on us for this, and on me personally, and this is something that today happened to me but tomorrow could be on you. It harms our democracy, it is a fatal blow to our security here in our country."

The latest round of sanctions come after Israel approved the largest land grab in the occupied West Bank in decades.

Israeli authorities approved the seizure of 12.7 square kilometres of land in the Jordan Valley, a move widely condemned by the international community, which views such settlements as illegal.