Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that the move to impose US sanctions on an Israeli army unit is “the height of absurdity and moral depravity,” in an unprecedented attack on Washington.

This came after a report by the Hebrew "Wala" website, on Saturday evening, which said that Washington, in a move that is the first of its kind, is about to impose sanctions on the "Netzah Yehuda" Brigade for violating human rights against Palestinians in the West Bank.

In a post on his account on the “X” platform, Netanyahu wrote: “It is not permissible to impose sanctions on the Israeli army.”

He added: "In recent weeks, I have been working against imposing sanctions on Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with senior officials in the American administration," referring to Washington's imposition last February of sanctions against 4 settlers for committing violent crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Netanyahu went on to escalate his attack on Washington: “At a time when our soldiers are fighting the monsters of terrorism, moving to impose sanctions on an Israeli army battalion is the height of absurdity and moral degradation.”

Earlier on Saturday, Barak Ravid, the diplomatic correspondent for the Walla website, quoted three unnamed American sources as saying, “It is expected that US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, will announce sanctions against the Israeli Netzah Yehuda Brigade in the coming days, against the backdrop of human rights violations.” In the West Bank.

This will be the first time ever that the US administration imposes sanctions on an Israeli military unit due to its activities in the West Bank, according to the same source.

The sources stated that the sanctions “will prevent the transfer of American military aid to the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, and will prevent its soldiers and officers from participating in training with the American army, or participating in activities that receive American funding.”

The "Netzah Yehuda" Battalion was established in 1999 as a special military unit for ultra-Orthodox Jews, where all soldiers and officers are men.

In September 2022, Amos Harel, a military analyst for the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz, reported that the US State Department had begun conducting an examination of the “Netzah Yehuda” battalion following several incidents in which soldiers from the battalion were involved in acts of violence against Palestinian civilians.