BEIRUT (Reuters) – France will impose measures on Israeli settlers who have attacked Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, its foreign minister said on Monday, a day after meeting Palestinian farmers in Ramallah, who had been targeted in recent weeks.
U.N. figures show that daily settler attacks have more than doubled since Hamas’ surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and the ensuing assault on the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed in the violence this year, including in attacks by settlers.
“We will not accept these acts. France will not wait any longer. We’ve asked Israeli authorities to put an end to this and it will take national measures against certain radical Israeli settlers,” Catherine Colonna told a news conference in Beirut after a two-day visit to Israel, Ramallah and Lebanon.
The European Union is studying the prospect of sanctions against violent Jewish settlers.
“This land is Palestinian and will be part of a Palestinian state,” she said.
Colonna was in Beirut on Monday to meet Lebanese officials, UNIFIL, the U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, and pass messages to Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Paris is hoping to broker with its partners some sort of an arrangement to ensure all sides keep to the terms of Security Council resolution 1701.
“We are far from it,” she said.
The resolution, passed at the end of the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, stated that no armed factions should be present between Lebanon’s Litani River and the border.
The resolution banned all unauthorised weapons between the Litani River and the U.N.-monitored border between Israel and Lebanon. Under the resolution, Lebanon’s army is responsible for security on its side of the border in a zone from which any other armed force, including Hezbollah, is banned.
Colonna, who did not meet Hezbollah during her visit, called on both sides to abide by the resolution and begin putting steps in place to ensure its full implementation.
“Neither side is implementing it. Both sides accepted it,” she said. “We need to engage a form of de-escalation. We can’t continue like this without a serious risk of escalation,” she said, without saying whether either side was willing to take steps.
(Writing by John Irish; Editing by Nick Macfie)
