President Trump has rescinded the sanctions imposed by the Biden administration on dozens of Israeli individuals and far-right settler groups accused of violence against Palestinians and the seizure or destruction of Palestinian property.
The move came on Monday shortly after Mr. Trump took office, even as Jewish extremists raided several Palestinian villages in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, setting fire to vehicles and properties, according to Palestinian officials and the Israeli military.
Adding to the rising tensions in the West Bank, the Israeli military announced on Tuesday that it had embarked on what it described as a counterterrorism operation in Jenin, a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank that has become a hotbed of militancy.
The cancellation of the sanctions was one of a long list of executive orders that Mr. Trump signed immediately after his inauguration. Palestinian officials strongly criticized the move, saying it was likely to encourage further violence.
Hard-line members of Israel’s right-wing government and leaders of the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank had been requesting the removal of the sanctions, which then-President Biden imposed under an executive order he signed almost a year ago. Some settler leaders have nurtured close ties with Mr. Trump’s associates over the years, including Mike Huckabee, Mr. Trump’s pick as the next ambassador to Jerusalem.
The cancellation of the sanctions coincided with a second consecutive night of violence in the West Bank as extremist settlers protested against the cease-fire in Gaza, which took effect on Sunday and ushered in a period of calm after 15 months of war prompted by the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on Israel.
Far-right members of the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and their supporters oppose the cease-fire, the first phase of which calls for a six-week truce and weekly exchanges of a total of 33 hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The details of the deal’s second phase have yet to be negotiated, but it calls for the temporary cease-fire to become permanent and for a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.
