The Biden administration has informed Israel that Washington will impose visa bans in the next few weeks on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, a senior State Department official said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet have let them know that the United States will take its own action against an undisclosed number of individuals, reports Reuters.
The West Bank, among the territories where Palestinians seek statehood, has experienced a surge of violence in recent months amid expanding Jewish settlements and a nearly decade-old impasse in U.S.-sponsored peacemaking.
The violence, at a more-than-15-year high this year, surged further after Israel hurtled into a new war in the separate enclave of Gaza in response to Palestinian militant group Hamas unleashing the deadliest day in Israel's history on Oct. 7.
Asked for a response, Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said he had no comment on the matter but said that Israel firmly condemned any vigilantism or hooliganism or attempts by individuals to take the law into their own hands.
The United States has repeatedly expressed its concern over the rising violence in the West Bank, saying it must stop. U.S. President Joe Biden, in a Nov. 18 Washington Post opinion piece threatened to take action against the perpetrators.
Bd-pratidin English/Lutful Hoque
