US imposes sanctions on Israeli group for attacks on humanitarian aid

The United States has imposed sanctions on an Israeli group that it says attacked humanitarian aid convoys heading to Gaza.

The US State Department said it would freeze the US assets of Tzav 9, an organisation with ties to Israeli reservists and settlers in the West Bank, and bar Americans from doing business with it.

For months, Israeli activists have been preventing aid convoys for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

On May 13, protesters were filmed attacking two trucks in the occupied West Bank and ripping open sacks of grain. The vehicles were set on fire. The White House described the “looting” of the aid convoys as “absolute outrage.”

Tzav 9 stated at the time that some of the protesters’ actions were “not in line with the values ​​of our movement.”

However, the statement also said that “blocking the trucks is an effective and practical step in which we shout: ‘No help will get through until the last hostage has returned.'”

The State Department said on Friday that the U.S. sanctions were imposed based on an executive order signed by President Joe Biden in February regarding violence in the West Bank.

“For months, individuals from Tzav 9 have repeatedly attempted to prevent the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, including by blocking roads on their route from Jordan to Gaza, which also crosses the West Bank, sometimes violently,” the US State Department said in a statement.

Previously, there had been sanctions against Jewish settlers who were involved in attacks on Palestinians and militant Palestinian groups.

The Israel Defense Forces are also accused of withholding aid, a charge they deny.

The UN warned that more than a million people in the Gaza Strip could face famine by mid-July if more humanitarian aid was not allowed into the Strip.

According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, more than 37,000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands injured or displaced in the Israeli offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

The war began after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 others hostage to Gaza.