As Gaza’s genocide enters its fourth year, Europe’s fight moves to settlements
Unable to agree on sanctions over Gaza, a growing number of European states are instead targeting Israel's illegal West Bank settlements: banning their goods, sanctioning settler leaders, and testing the limits of EU unity
BRUSSELS (MNTV) — With the genocide in Gaza entering its fourth year, a significant front in Europe’s response has shifted to the occupied West Bank, where a widening group of states is moving against the illegal Israeli settlements that international law deems the clearest obstacle to a Palestinian state.
The measures have accumulated steadily through 2026. Belgium approved a ban on imports of settlement goods; Portugal added its name to the list of countries doing the same, its foreign ministry stating that Israel’s settlement policy is illegal and undermines a two-state solution. France and Sweden have led calls for an EU-wide ban on settlement trade. Britain, Norway, Canada and Australia have imposed their own sanctions on the funders of settlement expansion.
At the EU level, the bloc went further than before in May, adopting restrictive measures — asset freezes and travel bans — against major settler organisations and figures, including the Nachala Settlement Movement, its director Daniella Weiss, and the powerful Amana cooperative, accused of financing dozens of violent outposts on Palestinian land.
Yet the pattern of paralysis persists.
A proposed EU-wide ban on settlement goods remains deadlocked, stalled by Germany and Italy, two of the continent’s largest economies. Berlin in particular has opposed sanctions against Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, the principal architect of settlement expansion — part of what analysts describe as Germany’s extension of its doctrine of support for Israel to shielding the settlement project itself.
The European Council on Foreign Relations has argued that Europeans do not need consensus to act — that individual states can and should proceed with national measures against the organisations financing settlement growth, from the Jewish National Fund’s real-estate arm to the World Zionist Organization’s Settlement Division.
As the anniversary passes, the settlements have become the arena where Europe’s divided conscience is most visibly tested: a growing coalition willing to act, and a powerful minority determined to hold it back.
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