Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of carrying out a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank with the intention to annex the Palestinian territory. The accusation came in a new, 149-page report alleging that the forced displacement of West Bank Palestinians resulted from a concerted state policy, and not just the actions of violent settlers, reports the AP. While much of the displacement is driven by settlers who build outposts on Palestinian land, the report asserts that the process could not occur without the support of the government. The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements illegal. Israel, meanwhile, views the West Bank as disputed territory and says its final status is subject to negotiations.
UN data says that over 100 West Bank villages have been fully or partially emptied out between January 2023 and April 2026. At the same time, the United Nations has tracked more than 7,280 instances of individual Palestinian displacement because of demolition of homes and structures by Israeli forces, a figure that includes people who were displaced more than once. Israel has in the past denounced such accusations—including allegations of "ethnic cleansing," a term referring to forced expulsions of a population by violence—as reflecting longtime unfair bias. It did not immediately respond to the report.
"These abuses are not the result of a few 'bad apples.' Settler violence is a core component of a state-sanctioned campaign of ethnic cleansing," said Agnès Callamard, the head of Amnesty. "What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation, in complete violation of international law, unfolding before the eyes of the entire world." Israeli leaders have condemned particularly grave violence by Jewish settlers but tend to denounce them as exceptions. Key Cabinet ministers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government are pushing for a formal annexation of the territory, and officials have voiced support for Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. Last year, President Trump said he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank. The US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas also acknowledged Palestinian aspirations for statehood.
Amnesty says the large-scale displacement of Palestinian Bedouin communities in the territory is caused by settler violence, advancement of new settlements and the Israeli takeover of large swaths of unregistered land. Rights groups have raised the alarm about this form of displacement before 2023, but say it dramatically intensified after Hamas' Oct. 7 attack on Israel that year. The anti-settlement monitoring group Peace Now says that 212 of at least 363 existing outposts in the West Bank were created since 2023. The outposts are built without permission from Israeli authorities, who sometimes dismantle them but other times turn a blind eye or even legalize them retroactively. Amnesty also said the international community has failed to act to stop the displacement.
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