Maxime Prévot, Belgium’s deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, on Monday credited Hungary’s new government with helping secure approval of sanctions targeting Israeli citizens and organizations operating in Judea and Samaria.
“After months of deadlock, thanks to the change of government in Budapest, the E.U. decided today on new additional sanctions against violent Israeli settlers and settler organizations, as well as against leading Hamas figures,” tweeted Prévot, a member of the Les Engagés center-left party, a junior coalition partner of the ruling center-right New Flemish Alliance under Prime Minister Bart de Wever.
“On behalf of Belgium, I have been pleading for this at the European table for a very long time,” he wrote on X. “These sanctions send a clear message: extremism and violence carry consequences.”
According to Prévot, “the illegal settlements and the rise in settler violence against Palestinians are unacceptable and undermine any prospect of a two-state solution.”
Last month, then Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz Party were defeated by the pro-European Tisza Party, led by newcomer Péter Magyar, after ruling the country for 16 years.
Newly minted Hungarian Foreign Minister Anita Orbán, who is not related to the former premier, said earlier this week that Budapest too often used its veto power in Brussels as “political theater.”
Hungary will not become a “weak, silent member state” and will apply a veto when “real Hungarian interests are at stake,” Budapest’s top diplomat added.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night condemned Brussels’ decision to impose the sanctions as “unacceptable”
“As Israel and the United States are ‘doing Europe’s dirty work’ by fighting for civilization against Jihadist lunatics in Iran and elsewhere,” the Prime Minister’s Office stated, “the European Union has exposed its moral bankruptcy by drawing a false symmetry between Israeli citizens and Hamas terrorists.”
According to Netanyahu, “European politicians are coerced by their radical constituencies.”
“Sanctioning Jews for living in Judea and Samaria is unacceptable. Judea is where Jews come from and Israel will always protect the rights of Jews to live in the heart of our ancestral homeland,” he added.
In conclusion, he said, “The European Union’s attempts to sanction Israeli civilians is a further sign of weakness and will not succeed.”
Last year, a report published by Israel’s Regavim Movement found that most of incidents of “violence” attributed to Judea and Samaria Jews in recent years by the United Nations were fabricated.
An analysis of 6,285 incidents documented by the U.N. showed that some 90% of the alleged acts in Judea and Samaria did not take place in the disputed territory but in eastern Jerusalem, or were entirely peaceful, such as visits by Israeli Jews to the Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest site, as well as legal activities, such as civilian hikes or infrastructure work.
Filtered for verified incidents of physical violence by Israeli Jews against Palestinians, the list shrinks to just 833 cases over a period of seven and a half years, averaging fewer than 10 incidents per month, according to Regavim.
In addition, the Regavim report found that many of these confirmed cases were also misclassified or involved anti-Israel provocations orchestrated by Palestinian and foreign left-wing activist groups.
Meanwhile, Palestinian terrorists targeted Israeli Jews in Judea and Samaria at least 5,051 times in 2025, according to figures published by the Rescuers Without Borders (Hatzalah Judea and Samaria) NGO.
Twenty-four Israelis were murdered in Judea and Samaria in 2025, and more than 400 others were wounded, the NGO said in its annual report.
The findings, which were cross-checked against official data from the Jewish state’s security agencies, included 3,299 instances of rock-throwing, 458 attacks with Molotov cocktails, 655 attempts to blind drivers with laser pointers, 286 explosive charges and 19 terrorist shooting assaults.
