US sanctions Israeli West Bank settler group

What happened

The U.S. Treasury Department Monday imposed sanctions on Amana, Israel's largest settlement development organization, and its Binyanei Bar Amana subsidiary, calling the groups "a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement" and accusing them of supporting growing settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

Who said what

Amana has "established dozens of illegal settler outposts and directly engaged in dispossession of private land owned by Palestinians in its support of settlers," said the State Department, which separately sanctioned three companies and three people "for their roles in violence targeting civilians" or property crimes.

Barring Amana from conducting business with Americans or accessing U.S.-held assets was "potentially the most significant sanction" yet under an executive order President Joe Biden issued in February, Haaretz said. The Amana sanctions were "an earthquake for the settlement project," Eitay Mack, a human rights lawyer who spent years pushing for sanctioning West Bank settlers, said to The Associated Press.

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Amana is a "well-established decades-old group that has close ties with Israeli leadership," the AP said. Mack and nearly 90 congressional Democrats have urged Biden to also impose sanctions on far-right, pro-settler Israeli Cabinet ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

What next?

Biden's West Bank sanctions "could be quickly reversed under President-elect Donald Trump, whose incoming administration is expected to be pro-settler," Reuters said.