
The Biden administration will later today announce sanctions against a far-right Israeli group that has been behind attacks on humanitarian aid convoys en route to Gaza, a US official confirms to The Times of Israel.
The sanctions will target Tsav 9, a group with ties to Israeli army reservists and Israeli settlers over activities including blocking, harassing and damaging aid shipments.
The financial sanctions will be imposed under an executive order on West Bank violence Biden signed in February, which was previously used to impose financial on violent settlers involved in attacks on Palestinians and Israeli peace activists. Today will be the fourth batch of sanctions issued under the executive order.
- “We’re using the authority to sanction an ever-broadening selection of actors, targeting individuals and entities that threaten the peace, security and stability of the West Bank regardless of religion, ethnicity or location,” Aaron Forsberg, director of the State Department’s office of sanctions policy and implementation, tells Reuters.
On May 13, members of Tsav 9 looted and then set fire to two aid trucks near the West Bank city of Hebron.
Tsav 9 — Hebrew for Order 9, a reference to call-up orders for Israeli military reservists — said after the May 13 incident it acted to stop supplies from reaching Hamas and accused the Israeli government of giving “gifts” to the terror group.
- “For months, individuals from Tzav 9 have repeatedly sought to thwart the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, including by blocking roads, sometimes violently, along their route from Jordan to Gaza, including transiting the West Bank,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller says in a statement seen by Reuters.
- “They also have damaged aid trucks and dumped life-saving humanitarian aid onto the road.”
The move freezes any assets the group holds under US jurisdiction and bars Americans from dealing with it.
Palestinians and human rights groups have long accused the Israeli military and police of deliberately failing to intervene when settlers attack Palestinians in the West Bank.
Israel arrested four of those involved in the May 13 attack, including a minor, according to lawyers. However, there have been no reports of indictments filed.
- “We’ll continue to use all tools at our disposal to promote accountability for those who attempt to undertake or perpetrate such heinous acts,” Forsberg says. “We have raised this at all levels of the government of Israel and we expect that Israeli authorities will do the same.”
Deliberations of the measure against Tzav 9 were first reported last month in The Times of Israel.
The convoy attacks in the West Bank largely started in April when Israel agreed to expand the aid route from Jordan to ensure that more assistance gets into Gaza.
Individual members of the Israeli security forces are believed to be tipping off the far-right activists regarding the location of the aid trucks once they’re en route to Gaza, enabling their interception by those who have blocked the convoys from proceeding, and looting their contents.
Early on in the war, when the attacks were happening regularly near Israel’s Kerem Shalom and Nitzana crossings into Gaza, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir signaled to police, which are under his jurisdiction, to take a lax approach to the crackdown, an Israeli official said.
Source: TOI