WEST BANK:
Amnesty International’s head said that the ‘abuses are not the result of a few bad apples,’ but are a core component of a state-sanctioned campaign
Amnesty International on Wednesday accused Israel of carrying out a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank with the intention to annex the 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.
While much of the displacement is driven by settlers who build outposts, the report said that the process could not occur without the support of the Israeli government.
Photo: Reuters
UN data show that more than 100 West Bank villages have been fully or partially emptied between January 2023 and April. At the same time, the UN 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 denounced such accusations — including allegations of “ethnic cleansing,” a term referring to forced expulsions of 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,” Amnesty International secretary-general Agnes Callamard said. “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 violence by Jewish settlers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government is dominated by settler leaders and supporters, and key Cabinet ministers are pushing for a formal annexation of the territory.
The government has come under heavy criticism from Palestinians and rights groups for accelerating settlement expansion, which they say is aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state there.
More than 700,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War and claimed by the Palestinians as parts of a future state.
Amnesty International said it has identified dozens of bills in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to extend Israeli civil law and jurisdiction over settlement blocs, as well as over courts that try Palestinians.
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, 2023, attack on Israel.
Rights groups say Bedouin herding communities in remote areas of the West Bank are most vulnerable to displacement. Unlike Palestinians in cities and towns across the West Bank, the villagers are less able to withstand the pressure from settlers as they establish new outposts around Palestinian villages.
Monitoring group Peace Now said that 212 of at least 363 outposts in the West Bank were created since 2023.