Foreign minister Penny Wong says ministers were proponents of ‘unlawful and violent Israeli settlement enterprise’

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Australia has joined the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Norway in placing financial sanctions and travel bans on two Israeli government ministers, over what Penny Wong described as “inciting violence against Palestinians in the West Bank”.

The Magnitsky-style sanctions on Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, were in response to serious human rights violations and abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank, including Israeli settlements considered illegal under international law, the governments said in a joint statement.