A group of seven Democratic senators called on the U.S. state and treasury departments on Monday to impose sanctions on Israelis engaged in “settler violence.”
The letter accuses Israelis of blocking aid into Gaza and calls on the Trump administration to apply sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act.
“We write to express our grave concern over reports that Israeli settlers are obstructing
the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza and engaging in violent attacks against Palestinian
civilians, including U.S. citizens, in the West Bank,” the senators wrote. “These actions directly undermine the United States’ foreign-policy interests, contribute to regional instability and potentially constitute gross violations of human rights.”
The senators went on to accuse settlers of responsibility for the deaths of Sayfollah Musallet, a Palestinian American living north of Ramallah who was killed in July, and Khamis Ayyad, a Palestinian American resident of Chicago who died of smoke inhalation after an alleged arson attack in a village near the one where Musallet was killed.
“Given the increasingly dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza and ongoing violence in the West
Bank, the U.S. must do more to ensure the safe distribution of aid and promote security and stability in these areas to prevent further conflict,” the senators wrote.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) led the letter. He was joined by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).
Most of the signatories are frequent critics of Israel in the Senate.
Gallego, a former Marine who served in Iraq, is a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate and, in recent months, has made trips to the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Iowa.
The letter is the latest effort from Democrats to reimpose sanctions on Israelis engaged in “extremist settler violence” that were imposed by the Biden administration and lifted on U.S. President Donald Trump’s first day in office. It follows a pair of bills introduced earlier in August that sought to do the same by congressional action.
In June, the Israeli nonprofit organization Regavim issued a report disputing U.N. statistics that purport to show an epidemic of “settler violence.”
The report noted that 98% of the world body’s examples of “settler violence” involved Palestinians clashing with Israeli security forces.
Of the remaining 2% of U.N. cases, the director of Regavim’s international division, Naomi Kahn, told JNS that the “overwhelming majority of cases” were “self-defense by Jews, or it was undetermined—a two-way scuffle.”
