{"id":354746,"date":"2026-06-10T14:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T14:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/354746\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T14:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T14:49:14","slug":"amnesty-accuses-israel-of-ethnic-cleansing-of-palestinians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/354746\/","title":{"rendered":"Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JULIA FRANKEL<\/p>\n

JERUSALEM (AP) \u2014 Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of carrying out a campaign of \u201cethnic cleansing\u201d<\/a> of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank<\/a> with the intention to annex the Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n

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 on Palestinian land, the report asserts that the process could not occur without the support of the government.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

U.N. 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>, a figure that includes people who were displaced more than once.<\/p>\n

Israel has in the past denounced such accusations \u2014 including allegations of \u201cethnic cleansing,\u201d a term referring to forced expulsions of population by violence \u2014 as reflecting longtime unfair bias. It did not immediately respond to the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese abuses are not the result of a few \u2018bad apples.\u2019 Settler violence is a\u202fcore\u202fcomponent\u202fof a state-sanctioned campaign of ethnic cleansing,\u201d said Agn\u00e8s\u202fCallamard, the head of Amnesty. \u201cWhat we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation, in complete violation of international law unfolding before the eyes of the entire world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Palestinian<\/p>\n

Palestinian officials and foreign diplomats take a photo with school children during their field tour in the West Bank Bedouin hamlets of Khan al-Ahmar, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo\/Mahmoud Illean)\n<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

A view of the West Bank Bedouin hamlets of Khan al-Ahmar, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo\/Mahmoud Illean)\n<\/p>\n

\"Palestinian<\/p>\n

Palestinian officials and foreign diplomats talk to students during their field tour in the West Bank Bedouin hamlets of Khan al-Ahmar, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo\/Mahmoud Illean)\n<\/p>\n

\"Palestinian<\/p>\n

Palestinian students walk on their way home after receiving their year-end reports from school, in the West Bank Bedouin hamlets of Khan al-Ahmar, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo\/Mahmoud Illean)\n<\/p>\n

Show Caption<\/p>\n

1 of 4<\/p>\n

Palestinian officials and foreign diplomats take a photo with school children during their field tour in the West Bank Bedouin hamlets of Khan al-Ahmar, Wednesday, June 10, 2026. (AP Photo\/Mahmoud Illean)\n<\/p>\n

Expand<\/a><\/p>\n

Israeli leaders have condemned particularly grave violence by Jewish settlers but tend to denounce them as exceptions<\/a>. Key Cabinet ministers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing government are pushing for a formal annexation of the territory, and officials have voiced support for Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.<\/p>\n

Amnesty says it has identified dozens of bills in Israel\u2019s parliament, the Knesset, to extend Israeli civil law and jurisdiction over settlement blocs, as well as over courts that try Palestinians. Recently, the parliament approved a measure making the death penalty<\/a> the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis.<\/p>\n

Last year, President Donald Trump<\/a> said he would not allow Israel to annex the West Bank<\/a>. The U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that aimed to stop the war in Gaza also acknowledged Palestinian aspirations for statehood<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u2019 Oct. 7 attack on Israel that year that triggered the war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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 often-armed settlers as they establish new outposts around Palestinian villages.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Amnesty said its report looked into 27 hamlets and villages in the West Bank where Palestinians were displaced between 2023 and 2025. Researchers interviewed dozens of Palestinians and lawyers, spoke with witnesses of settler violence, watched over 420 videos and analyzed government statements and other reports.<\/p>\n

The group also said the international community has failed to act to stop the displacement.<\/p>\n

More than 700,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories captured by Israel in 1967 and sought by the Palestinians for their independent state, along with the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n

Dror Etkes, who runs the settlement watchdog group Kerem Navot, said that since the October 2023 attack, settlers have taken about 12.5% of West Bank territory \u2014 land that Palestinians can no longer access or cross safely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By JULIA FRANKEL JERUSALEM (AP) \u2014 Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of carrying out a campaign of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[340,144689,842,4007,74,76,75,36482],"class_list":["post-354746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-israel","tag-israel-ethnic-cleansing","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-palestinians","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}