Israeli settlers, under the protection of Israeli army, attacks the Old City area of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, Palestine, on 23 May 2026. [Getty]
Britain and the foreign ministers of Australia, Canada, France and Norway said on Tuesday they had taken coordinated action to hold extremist Israeli settlers accountable in response to what they described as a “deteriorating situation” in the occupied West Bank.
After issuing new sanctions earlier on Tuesday, the group of countries warned that they stood ready to take further measures if the Israeli government failed to take urgent steps to address the situation on the ground.
Similarly, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot announced that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has been banned from entering the country for his abuses.
Earlier, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry said Palestinian civilians across war-ravaged Gaza and the occupied West Bank are being “systematically and deliberately” subjected to severe rights violations,
The investigative team, which last year concluded that Israel had committed “genocide” in the war in Gaza, highlighted in a new report that civilians in the territory were also being “violently repressed and controlled by the very faction that claims to govern them”.
In the occupied West Bank, which has seen soaring violence by Israeli forces and settlers since October 2023, the report described how Palestinian civilians were increasingly targeted by Israeli settler attacks.
“Violence by settlers is the direct outcome of Israeli policies that support, enable and protect their actions,” commission chair Srinivasan Muralidhar said in a statement.
“What is alarmingly similar is the deliberate infliction of suffering on Palestinian civilians. While their origins and motivations differ, both operate within environments engineered by Israel,” said Muralidhar, an Indian judge.
The three-person commission was established by the UN Human Rights Council in May 2021 to investigate alleged rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Tuesday’s report focused heavily on the situation in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967.
In the occupied West Bank alone, Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,080 Palestinians since October 2023, according to Palestinian health ministry data.
The inquiry found that at least 26 Palestinians were killed and at least 1,570 were injured by Israeli settlers between January 2023 and December 2025.
“This trend continues in 2026 with attacks carried out on a daily basis,” the investigators said.
