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The State Department announced Friday that it was imposing sanctions on a right-wing Israeli group that has been trying to prevent aid from reaching people in the Gaza Strip by blocking trucks traveling from Jordan to the coastal enclave.
The department’s statement said the sanctioned organization, Tzav 9, was “a violent extremist Israeli group that has been blocking, harassing, and damaging convoys carrying lifesaving humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
Members of the group have tried for months to prevent humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, the department said. They have blocked roads on which aid trucks travel between Jordan and Gaza, including in the West Bank, and in some instances have raided the trucks, damaged them and dumped packages of aid onto the road, the agency said.
The department also said that Tzav 9 members looted and then set fire to two Gaza-bound aid trucks near the West Bank city of Hebron on May 13.
“We will not tolerate acts of sabotage and violence targeting this essential humanitarian assistance,” the State Department said. “We will continue to use all tools at our disposal to promote accountability for those who attempt or undertake such heinous acts, and we expect and urge that Israeli authorities do the same.”
In a statement after the sanctions were announced, Tzav 9 denounced the U.S. move and defended itself, saying that it had “conducted democratic and peaceful protest which solely involved roadblocks and demonstrations, without any damage to people or property, against the transfer of aid directly to the hands of Hamas.”
The State Department designation means that the group and its members are barred from doing business and financial transactions with U.S. entities. Any property and assets they have in the United States will be frozen. It is unclear what practical impact that will have on the group, but many Israelis have close ties to the United States, and some have dual citizenship.
The U.S. secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, has highlighted the importance of ensuring that trucks carrying aid reach Gaza, even as the State Department continues to approve arms orders from Israel, consistent with President Biden’s policy of supporting Israel in its war in Gaza. He has visited a warehouse in Jordan where trucks were being loaded with such aid, and also the Kerem Shalom checkpoint on Israel’s border, where many aid trucks are inspected and enter Gaza.
The U.S. military has built a floating pier on Gaza’s shore from which aid shipments can be sent into the territory, but that effort has been trouble-plagued.
The Tzav 9 organization was founded during the war between Hamas and Israel — the name refers to an Israeli military mobilization order — by activists who aimed to stop humanitarian relief convoys for Gaza, which they asserted would empower Hamas.
Sefi Ben Haim, a Tzav 9 activist, worked for months to block aid convoys from entering Gaza from Israel at the Kerem Shalom border crossing. Mr. Ben Haim, a resident of Netivot, a town near the Gaza border, said many Palestinians in Gaza bore responsibility for the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assault on Israel, citing scenes of civilians crossing the border, following Hamas militants.
For months, activists tried to impede aid convoys by blockading roads, but the conflicts escalated in May, when some Israelis attacked trucks on several occasions, smashing windows and hurling goods onto the road. Several Palestinians and soldiers were wounded in the resulting melees, according to the Israeli military and Palestinian witnesses.
Such attacks have generally been organized on the messaging platform WhatsApp, with Israeli settlers reporting when a truck convoy has been spotted approaching a specific junction and calling anyone nearby to accost it.
Tzav 9 activists sought to distance themselves from the most violent attacks and called a halt to their protests last month.