Hawzah News Agency- A group of more than 160 civil society groups, non-governmental organizations and trade unions have called on the European Union to bar any trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds, according to Aljazeera.

“EU member states repeatedly have and unanimously condemned Israel’s settlements in the West Bank as ‘illegal’ and as an ‘obstacle to peace’,” the watchdog group Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

“By adopting two rounds of targeted sanctions against Israeli settlers, EU member states have also unanimously acknowledged the seriousness of the abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank.”