JAKARTA - France on Tuesday announced a travel ban on its territory against the right-wing Israeli Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said, as part of coordinated sanctions with other countries over settler violence against Palestinians.
The French sanctions were carried out in coordination with Britain, Canada, Australia, Norway, and New Zealand, which targeted "those responsible for increased settlement activity and violence in the West Bank," Foreign Minister Barrot said on X, launching Al Arabiya from AFP (10/6).
He said Smotrich "actively promotes annexation of the West Bank, which he openly claims, the construction of new settlements in the West Bank, the reoccupation of Gaza, the collapse of the Palestinian Authority's economy and its dire consequences for the Palestinian population."
"This is a policy that is unacceptable to most of the international community, which is firmly committed to the two-state solution," tweeted Foreign Minister Barrot.
Smotrich is the second Israeli government member to be barred from France in recent months, after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was banned on May 23 for mocking activists detained by the Israeli army from a flotilla heading to Gaza carrying aid for the Palestinian territory.
France also banned four leaders of settlement organizations and 21 settlers who committed violence.
Israel's Foreign Ministry was quick to condemn the sanctions as "shameful."
"The essence of these measures is actually an attempt to impose a political stance on the right of Jews to settle in the Land of Israel and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - which is disguised as an act against violence," said ministry spokesman Oren Marmorstein.
It is known that Ben Gvir and Smotrich were banned by five other countries in June last year, on charges of inciting violence against Palestinians, especially in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli government at the time condemned the sanctions as a "scandal."
Other countries have also banned the ministers, including Spain, Slovenia and most recently Ireland.
Ben Gvir, who became a minister in 2022, after an alliance with the right-wing Religious Zionist party Smotrich came in third in the legislative elections.
Together, Ben Gvir and Smotrich form the main pillar of the coalition government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Since the war in Gaza broke out in October 2023 with the attack of the Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel, violence that almost every day also shakes the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967.
Israeli soldiers or settlers have killed at least 1,080 Palestinians since then, including militants and civilians, according to AFP's calculations based on Palestinian health ministry data.
Meanwhile, Israel's official figures show that at least 46 Israelis, both civilians and soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations in the same period.
A UN-mandated probe on Tuesday said Palestinian civilians were caught between "mass atrocities" by Israeli forces, settlers and the brutal Hamas government in war-torn Gaza.
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