France is considering extending sanctions on Israeli settlers behind violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s office said he spoke with Jordan\u2019s King Abdullah II.
\nThe two leaders \u201cfirmly condemned recent Israeli announcements about settlements\u201d in the West Bank, \u201cwhich are contrary to international law,\u201d Macron\u2019s office said in a statement.
\nTensions have mounted in the occupied territories since the Hamas October 7 attack on Israel that set off the Gaza war. At least 488 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank since October 7, according to Palestinian officials.
\nIn February, 28 \u201cextremist Israeli settlers\u201d were banned from entering French territory. Last week the European Union imposed sanctions on four Israeli settlers and two settler organizations for violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem.
\nSince the start of the year, Israeli authorities have declared nearly 1,100 hectares (2,720 acres) of the West Bank to be \u201cstate land\u201d \u2014 twice as much as in the previous record year in 1999, according to the settlement watchdog Peace Now.
\nThe status gives the government full control over how the land is used, inevitably leading it to being declared off-limits to Palestinians.
\nSome 490,000 Israeli settlers now live in the West Bank alongside three million Palestinians.
\nMacron and King Abdullah also spoke about the \u201ccatastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza\u201d and expressed \u201cgreat concern about the perspective of an Israeli offensive on Rafah, where more than 1.5 million people are seeking refuge, and reiterated their opposition to such an operation,\u201d the statement said.
\n\u201cThe two also insisted on the necessity of an immediate and durable ceasefire to allow massive deliveries of urgent aid and the protection of civilian populations,\u201d it added.
\nMacron also \u201crepeated that the liberation of hostages held by Hamas was an absolute priority for France.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
France is considering extending sanctions on Israeli settlers behind violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s office said he spoke with Jordan\u2019s King Abdullah II. The two leaders \u201cfirmly condemned recent Israeli announcements about settlements\u201d in the West Bank, \u201cwhich are contrary to international law,\u201d Macron\u2019s office said in a …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":63926,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63927,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63905\/revisions\/63927"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}