The EU's top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said Monday there is no unanimity in the bloc to impose sanctions on far-right Israeli national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, despite pressure from several countries.
‘Many member states have also proposed to sanction Minister Ben Gvir, but no consensus on that was reached today,’ Kallas said after a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
Calls to blacklist Ben Gvir grew after he published video last month of himself mocking bound activists seized by Israeli soldiers on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
France in response banned Ben Gvir from entering the country and called for the EU to impose bloc-wide sanctions.
EU sanctions have to be signed off by all the 27 member states and staunch supporters of Israel had refused to go along with the push.
Meanwhile, Kallas said that the EU would also look to lay out options for restricting trade with Israeli settlements after calls from some countries.
‘On the issue of trade with illegal settlements, many member states called for proposals from the European Commission,’ she said.
She said she would ask the EU's executive to prepare ‘a list of options for possible trade measures’ ahead of a next meeting of EU foreign ministers in July.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and since then settlement expansion has been a policy under successive Israeli governments.
But it has accelerated significantly under the current coalition government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Excluding east Jerusalem, more than 500,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank in settlements that are illegal under international law, among some three mn Palestinians.
