appointment of new PM Peter Magyar<\/a> on Saturday saw the veto quickly lifted.<\/p>\nFrench Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot welcomed the turnaround, saying that the EU was \u201csanctioning the main Israeli organisations guilty of supporting the extremist and violent colonisation of the West Bank\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay,\u201d he wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
![\"Election](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2026-04-20T143138Z_1832623724_RC22TKA75OYD_RTRMADP_3_HUNGARY-POLITICS-MAGYAR-1776726253.jpg\")
Prime Minister Peter Magyar took office in Hungary on May 9, and quickly removed the veto on the sanctions [Reuters]<\/p>\n
Israel quickly condemned the measures, asserting its position that Jews have the right to settle in the occupied West Bank, despite this being in violation of international law.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe European Union has chosen, in an arbitrary and political manner, to impose sanctions on Israeli citizens and entities because of their political views and without any basis,\u201d Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael has stood, stands, and will continue to stand for the right of Jews to settle in the heart of our homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir denounced the EU as \u201cantisemitic\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo expect the antisemitic union to make a moral decision is like expecting the sun to rise in the west. While our enemies perpetrate attacks and murder Jews, the European Union is trying to tie the hands of those who defend themselves,\u201d Ben Gvir said in a post on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe settlement enterprise will not be deterred. We will continue to build, to plant, to defend, and to settle throughout the entire land of Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Antisemitic massacre\u2019<\/p>\n
Barrot said the ministers had also decided to sanction the leadership of the Palestinian group Hamas, whose armed wing was a major participant in the attack on southern Israel from Gaza on October 7, 2023 that killed around 1,200 people and saw 240 taken hostage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese most serious and intolerable acts must cease without delay,\u201d Barrot wrote on social media.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is sanctioning the main leaders of Hamas, responsible for the worst antisemitic massacre in our history since the Shoah during which 51 French people lost their lives, a terrorist movement that must imperatively be disarmed and excluded from any participation in the future of Palestine,\u201d Barrot said, using the Hebrew term to describe the Holocaust.<\/p>\n
Hamas did not immediately issue a response.<\/p>\n
Excluding East Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank in settlements, among some three million Palestinians.<\/p>\n
In 2025, the expansion of Israeli settlements reached its highest level since at least 2017, when the United Nations began tracking data.<\/p>\n
Since the start of Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza, the West Bank has been gripped by almost daily violence involving Israeli troops and settlers. More than 1,000 Palestinians<\/a> have been killed in the territory, according to the UN.<\/p>\nWhile the EU is moving ahead with the sanctions on Israeli settlers, there remains no consensus yet among member states to take further steps against Israel, such as curbing trade ties.<\/p>\n
However, with Hungary no longer blocking action, momentum could grow, although Budapest was not the only member state to be wary.<\/p>\n
Still, the foreign ministers who met in Brussels discussed calls to ban products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank.<\/p>\n
Italy\u2019s Antonio Tajani said that the European Commission would make a proposal on the move, and then the bloc would see if it had enough backing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Al Jazeera and News Agencies Published On 11 May 202611 May 2026 The European Union has agreed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[54,1092,1411,37,497,42,5144,498],"class_list":{"0":"post-108945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-europe","9":"tag-european-union","10":"tag-hamas","11":"tag-israel","12":"tag-israel-palestine-conflict","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-occupied-west-bank","15":"tag-palestine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116557630110076856","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}