US announces new sanctions on group supporting Israeli settler outpost

The US State Department announced it was imposing new sanctions on Hashomer Yosh, an organisation providing material support to an illegal Israeli settlement outpost in the occupied West Bank.

Hashomer Yosh has been providing support to the outpost of Meitarim Farm, a settler outpost previously sanctioned by the US.

The State Department also said it was sanctioning Yitzhak Levi Filant, the civilian coordinator of the Yitzhar settlement in the West Bank. The Israeli settlement has been the site of acute settler violence against Palestinians.

The settlement is located near the Palestinian village of Huwwara, which was set ablaze by Israeli settlers earlier this year.

Democracy for the Arab World Now (Dawn), a Washington DC-based human rights group, has called for US sanctions to not just target individual settlers, but also leadership within these settlements, which are deemed illegal under international law.

"If these sanctions are going to have any real meaning and impact, the Government should target not just a few 'bad apples' but the Israeli institutions and prominent leaders responsible for promoting the worst violence against Palestinians," Mohsen Farshneshani, Dawn's sanctions advisor said in a statement.

"Sanctioning the leadership of the Yitzhar settlement, including a sitting member of Knesset, is necessary to disrupt the well-organized networks of state-sanctioned violence and impunity that terrorize Palestinians every single day."