Netherlands to ban all trade with Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank, Golan Heights
The Dutch Prime Minister, Rob Arnoldus Adrianus Jetten, says Amsterdam will suspend all economic transactions with the Israeli regime’s settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Golan Heights.
The decision, approved in principle by the Council of Ministers, aims to block Dutch economic activity from contributing to any settlement expansion and occupation practices, Jetten announced during a press conference on Friday.
The measure is intended to “prevent Dutch society from contributing, through our economic activities, to illegal occupation and the maintenance of illegal settlements,” according to Jetten.
The proposed framework sets an initial validity period of three years and covers imports as well as the facilitation of commercial trade, involving illegal settlement goods, with Dutch companies operating abroad also being required to comply with the restrictions.
In parallel, the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, Tom Berend Willem Berendsen, and Minister of Financial Affairs, Sjoerd Wiemer Sjoerdsma, expressed “enormous concern” in a letter to the House of Representatives.
“The Illegal settlements and excessive violence by settlers are causing a continuous deterioration of the situation [in occupied Palestine],” they warned.
The Dutch government is also preparing additional sanctions targeting both violent Israeli settlers as part of a wider response to rising tensions in the region.
A report by Palestine’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) called 2025 a “year of bloodshed” in the occupied West Bank, recording over 23,800 attacks by Israeli armed forces and settlers against Palestinians.
The regime-supported attacks included assaults on Palestinians, their lands, and property, with the majority carried out by the Israeli armed forces.
Around 35,000 trees were destroyed or uprooted, the report revealed, adding that settlers caused hundreds of fires and widespread property damage throughout the occupied territory.
The settlement expansion and land theft continued to intensify throughout 2025 without pause, while military attacks led to mass displacement in several refugee camps, the report explained.
In early 2026, the Israeli spy agency Shin Bet reclassified settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank from “terror attacks” to “serious incidents,” limiting what counts as terrorism to cases with a clear intent to kill and reducing investigative priority for such cases.
Since October 7, 2023, when the regime launched its genocidal assault on Gaza, Israeli military armed forces, and settlers have killed at least 1,155 Palestinians, injured around 11,750 others, and abducted approximately 22,000 in the occupied West Bank, according to official figures.
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