US targets Israeli settler group with sanctions, Treasury Dept website shows

The Biden administration will continue to hold accountable those responsible for violent extremism in the absence of the Israeli government's actions to do so, the State Department said on Monday as it announced sanctions against West Bank settlement and outpost development organization Amana and its subsidiary Binyanei Bar Amana Ltd.

On Monday the State Department also announced sanctions imposed on Eyal Hari Yehuda Company LTD, Itamar Yehuda Levi, Shabtai Koshlevsky and Zohar Sabah.

According to the State Department, Eyal Hari Yehuda Company LTD provides vehicles used "in construction activities" to expand sanctioned entities. The company is owned by Levi. 

Koshlevsky is the vice president of Hashomer Yosh, an organization that sends volunteers to protect settler farms throughout the West Bank. Hashomer Yosh has been designated by the US government. 

The State Department said Sabah has engaged in threats and acts of violence against Palestinians, including in their homes, and demonstrated a pattern of destructiveness in the West Bank. Sabah was also implicated in the attack on the Al-Ka’abneh elementary school near Jericho in September 2024 which injured several Palestinians, the State Department added. 

In a briefing Monday, State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that actions of these individuals and Eyal Hari Yehuda Company LTD have contributed "both directly and indirectly to the rise of violence in the West Bank."

Miller also said Amana is a key part of the Israeli extremist settler movement.

"[Amana] maintains ties to a number of individuals previously sanctioned by the US government, and it has helped establish dozens of illegal settler outposts and directly engage in the dispossession of private land owned by Palestinians," he said. 

Miller said the US remains "committed to fighting increasing extremist extremist settler violence" and that the Biden administration sanctioned 33 entities and individuals over the past 10 months. 

"There is no justification for extremist violence against civilians. Period," Miller said. "We are committed to working with Israel and the Palestinian Authority to de-escalate violence in the West Bank, which has cost the lives of too many Israeli and Palestinian civilians."