BRUSSELS/JERUSALEM – The European Union (EU) members on Monday agreed on new sanctions on Israeli settlers over violence against Palestinians, after a months-long deadlock, according to a top EU diplomat.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on social media platform X that foreign ministers of EU members had approved the move. The decision comes amid rising settler violence and settlement expansion in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. "It was high time we move from deadlock to delivery," Kallas said.

The EU has yet to publish details of the individuals and entities to be targeted by the new sanctions.

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French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X that the EU was sanctioning major Israeli organizations and their leaders over their support for the "extremist and violent colonization of the West Bank." He said such "serious and intolerable" acts must stop immediately.

However, EU diplomats failed to agree on further measures, including a ban on products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank or the suspension of a key trade agreement with Israel.

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Since 2023, more than 5,900 Palestinians have been displaced by settler violence, including about 2,000 this year alone, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

'Oct 7 Hamas attack'

Israel's parliament on Monday approved a law to establish a special military tribunal for Palestinians suspected of involvement in the Hamas-led attack on Oct 7, 2023.

The tribunal is authorized to impose the death penalty, a sentence that has not been carried out in Israel since 1962.

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The law has drawn widespread criticism from rights groups. "The bill denies suspects the basic procedural protections essential to a fair trial," Adalah, a legal group for Arab minority rights in Israel, said in a statement.

It added that any resulting death sentence would constitute "an arbitrary deprivation of life, absolutely prohibited under international law and potentially a war crime."

The new law follows a legislation approved in late March that made the death penalty a default punishment for Palestinians convicted of deadly attacks.

The Oct 7 attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, with over 250 hostages kidnapped, according to Israeli figures. It triggered the massive Israeli military operation across Gaza that left the Palestinian enclave in ruins and killed at least 72,737 people, according to Gaza-based health authorities.