The UK has announced new sanctions on Israeli extremist groups and individuals for inciting and perpetuating violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.

In a statement released by the Foreign Office on Friday, Foreign Secretary David Cameron announced the latest sanction package following an “unprecedented rise in settler violence in the West Bank over the last year,” with the UN documenting at least 800 incidents since October.

“Extremist settlers are undermining security and stability and threatening prospects for peace,” Cameron said in the statement. “This latest package of sanctions targets two groups leading these attacks, and four individuals who are directly responsible for egregious violence against Palestinian civilians.”

The statement named the Hilltop Youth as one of the groups sanctioned in the latest measure, describing it as “a hardline nationalist Israeli youth group which establishes illegal settler outposts across the West Bank with the stated mission of expelling all Palestinians from the Occupied Territories.”

Palestinians scuffle with Israeli settlers in the West Bank, where incidents of Israeli violence against Palestinians have risen since October. (Photo by JAAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP) (Photo by JAAFAR ASHTIYEH/AFP via Getty Images)

The far-right organisation Lehava was also sanctioned “for facilitating, inciting, and promoting violence against Arab and Palestinian communities.”

The statement then listed four individuals – Noam Federman, Neria Ben Pazi, Eden Levi and Elisha Yered – who are being sanctioned for committing “egregious human rights abuses against Palestinian communities”

“Today’s measures impose financial restrictions on the entities and individuals, and travel restrictions on the individuals,” the statement said.

Today’s sanction package is the second such UK measure targeting settler violence in the West Bank, the first of which was announced by the Foreign Office on 12 February and named four extremist Israeli settlers including Ely Federman, Noam Federman’s son.

“The Israeli authorities must clamp down on those responsible,” Cameron said in the statement on Friday. “The UK will not hesitate to take further action if needed, including through further sanctions.”