{"id":945454,"date":"2026-05-08T06:12:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:12:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/945454\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T06:12:27","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T06:12:27","slug":"eu-details-e6m-west-bank-monitoring-plan-prepares-to-blacklist-more-settlers-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/945454\/","title":{"rendered":"EU details \u20ac6m West Bank monitoring plan, prepares to blacklist more settlers \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

The EU is to spend \u20ac6m on \u201cvolunteer\u201d monitors of settler violence in the West Bank, as foreign ministers prepare to blacklist the most extreme ones.<\/p>\n

The money is to be spent on \u201creinforcing volunteer first-responder teams and improving operational readiness of the Palestinian Civil Defence\u201d, an EU Commission spokesperson told EUobserver on Thursday (7 May).<\/p>\n

It will also support \u201ccivil society organisations to document violations, preserve evidence\u201d so that more violent settlers face trial.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt aims to enhance emergency response capacity and legal accountability in response to the sharp rise in violent settler attacks,\u201d the EU spokesperson also said.<\/p>\n

The first payments are foreseen by the end of July and will go to \u201cmostly affected communities \u2026 especially in Ramallah, Hebron, and Nablus governorates\u201d, who faced \u201cdeaths, injuries, property destruction, and forced displacement\u201d.<\/p>\n

The EU-financed \u201cvolunteer first-responders\u201d are meant to deter what Palestinian Authority prime minister Mohammad Mustafa called \u201csettler terrorism,\u201d commenting on the EU scheme to the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n

\u201cCivil society groups supported by the EU are expected to provide a protective presence in affected areas, while Palestinian communities facing attacks from settlers would also receive protective equipment such as fences,\u201d an EU source also told AFP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The EU Commission neither confirmed nor denied it would pay for fences.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s EU mission in Brussels and its foreign ministry in Jerusalem were approached for comment.<\/p>\n

Israel did let Irish liberal MEP Barry Andrews<\/a> tour the West Bank this week.<\/p>\n

But it does not usually like an international spotlight on its actions and has still not let journalists into Gaza<\/a> after two and half years, despite repeated EU appeals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI highly doubt the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] would play ball with that [the EU\u2019s West Bank monitors]\u201d, said David Issacharoff, a journalist at Israeli daily Haaretz.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might lead to escalations between Jerusalem and Brussels when IDF soldiers may be documented behaving in inappropriate ways when handling their [the EU\u2019s] staff or representatives on the ground,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Israeli settlers, often backed by the IDF, have killed 42 Palestinians, including 10 children and two women<\/a>, in 2026 up to 27 April, according to the UN humanitarian office.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Just two percent of the thousands of documented cases of violent attacks since October 2023 led to Israeli indictments, according to Israeli civil rights group Yesh Din<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe International Court of Justice was clear: Israel\u2019s very presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal. If the EU took action [sanctions] to implement that ruling, there would be no [extremist] settlers to begin with \u2013 and to protect Palestinians from,\u201d said Claudio Francavilla, from the Human Rights Watch group.<\/p>\n

\u201cAdding insult to injury, Europe continues to trade with Israel\u2019s illegal settlements, bankrolling the very abuses it condemns every other day\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n

Settler blacklist to grow? <\/strong><\/p>\n

For their part, EU foreign ministers will discuss anti-settler sanctions when they meet in Brussels on 11 May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The EU is to spend \u20ac6m on \u201cvolunteer\u201d monitors of settler violence in the West Bank, as foreign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":945455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,221969,263925,221967,263923,221968,263924],"class_list":{"0":"post-945454","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-typedefinedterm","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-identifier4328","13":"tag-identifier4647","14":"tag-nameisrael","15":"tag-namewest-bank","16":"tag-termcodeisrael","17":"tag-termcodewest-bank"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116537481563072701","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=945454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/945454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/945455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=945454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=945454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=945454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}