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Donald Trump cancelled Biden-era sanctions on violent Jewish extremists in the occupied West Bank, signing the executive order even as dozens of settlers rampaged through a Palestinian village torching cars and homes to protest against the Israel-Hamas ceasefire.
Trump also restored sanctions that his predecessor Joe Biden had suspended against the International Criminal Court, which has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister “for crimes against humanity and war crimes”.
Israel’s envoy to Washington, meanwhile, told reporters that Israel expected Trump to restore an unfettered supply of US-made 2,000lb bombs, again briefly suspended by Biden because of concerns about the killing of Palestinian civilians.
Taken together, the three decisions appear to confirm predictions that the incoming US administration will be the most pro-Israel in decades, in an era of war and political instability across the Middle East.
A separate Trump decision to suspend all US foreign aid for 90 days is also likely to impact Palestinians, since US donations to various programmes, including through USAID and the UN, account for a big share of the budgets of local aid organisations.
Biden’s decision last year to sanction individual settlers and some settler groups for their role in violent attacks on Palestinian villagers had increased tensions between the US and Israel’s ruling coalition, which includes far right-extremists who have celebrated those attacks.
On Monday night, according to the Israeli military and human rights groups, dozens of Israeli civilians rioted through a small Palestinian village called al-Funduq, setting cars and property on fire. Similar violence was reported at three other locations in the West Bank.
“Lifting sanctions on extremist settlers encourages them to commit more crimes against our people,” the Palestinian ministry of foreign affairs said. Local health officials estimate at least 20 Palestinians were injured, while two Israelis were shot by an Israeli policeman under circumstances that remain unclear.
During his previous administration, Trump recast Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as legal, recognised Israel’s claim to the Syrian Golan Heights and unveiled a Middle East peace initiative that gave the vast majority of the contested city of Jerusalem to Israel. Palestinians, who claim most of East Jerusalem, were allocated only a poor suburb of the holy city.
While that plan was immediately boycotted by most Palestinians, Trump is returning to power at a moment of weakness in the Palestinian movement. The Israeli far right has made clear that it senses an opportunity to achieve long-held goals, including annexing large parts of the West Bank.
Trump has already taken credit for shepherding a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to the finish line, celebrating the release of three Israeli hostages on Sunday. Several leaders of the Israeli settler movement attended his inauguration, although it is not clear if they were officially invited.
But asked if he felt the ceasefire could hold, Trump declined to throw his weight behind it. “It’s not our war. It is their war,” he said. “I am not confident.”
The current Gaza ceasefire plan is only two days into its first, six-week phase and requires that negotiations continue against the background of the emotional release of Israeli hostages by Hamas to cement an agreement to end the 15-month war permanently.
Large numbers of Palestinian prisoners are simultaneously being released by Israel, alongside a massive surge of humanitarian aid into the shattered enclave, where many civilians were living on the edge of famine.
Trump was equally vague when asked about the future of Gaza, which will require tens of billions of dollars of aid to rebuild after a punishing Israeli military offensive that has destroyed most of the tiny strip of land, home to 2.3mn Palestinians.
“Gaza is like a massive demolition site — it’s got to be rebuilt in a different way,” he said, remaining non-committal on whether the US would help in its restoration.
In the past, Trump has described the Palestinian-Israel conflict as a real estate dispute. In the White House yesterday, he returned to similar terminology, describing the war-ravaged enclave in the words of a property developer.
“It’s a phenomenal location — on the sea, the best weather, some beautiful things can be done with it,” he said.
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