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LONDON: The foreign minister of the Netherlands has said his country is working to ban goods from illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine. 

David van Weel made the comments during a visit to the West Bank, where he visited an area previously attacked by Israeli settlers.

The Netherlands paused efforts to enact broader sanctions against Israel following the ceasefire with Hamas last month. However, violence by settlers in the West Bank has prompted international condemnation.

“Now we deem it is not a time to increase sanctions on Israel because we want to see the peace plan implemented and we want to also encourage Israel to play a positive part in this,” van Weel told The Guardian.

“At the same time, we’re not blind to any movements on the West Bank that might move the two-state solution further (away).”

Sanctions are tough for EU members to impose individually on trade as the issue falls within the broader remit of the bloc.

“It’s not easy to make a carve-out,” van Weel said. “We cannot just stop (all imports from illegal settlements) immediately because there is currently no legal basis for that. We are trying to make new policy now, then it has to go through parliament.”

The EU is Israel’s largest trading partner, making up a third of all Israeli exports. Goods from the settlements make up a relatively small proportion of those exports. 

The Netherlands joins Spain, Slovenia, Belgium and Ireland in planning to sanction trade with Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Belgium and Spain have also cut consular services to those living in settlements.

In June, nine member states asked the EU Commission to assess cutting trade with Israeli settlements after the International Court of Justice ruling on the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Palestine. They included Finland, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Sweden.

The Netherlands is historically a staunch Israeli ally, but pushed the EU in May to review the association agreement with the country, which is the foundation of tariff-free trade and other links including in finance and scientific research.

This led to calls from within the EU in September to suspend the free trade agreement with Israel after it was found to have violated numerous human rights obligations.

There were also calls to sanction two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.

Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff, a former EU envoy to Palestine, told The Guardian: “Business as usual is over … Time for impunity is over.”

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed by settlers and the Israeli military this year in the West Bank, including 40 children.

Eight attacks occurred daily on average in October, including against people, property and livestock. It marks a high point in the past 20 years of EU records.

The attacks come amid plans by far-right Israeli politicians in parliament to effectively annex the West Bank by making it subject to Israeli law. The bill passed the preliminary reading stage in October but is opposed by the US.