Amnesty report accuses Israel of 'ethnic cleansing' in West Bank amid expanded settlements
Amnesty International said the remarkable speed and scale of Israel's takeover of the occupied West Bank amounted to a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” aimed at displacing the Palestinian population and eventually occupying the land.
In a new report published on Wednesday, the international human rights group accused the Israeli government of using a state-led and state-sponsored campaign that led to the forced expulsion of Palestinians from the West Bank.
“Our report reveals that these abuses are not caused by a few 'bad apples'. Settler violence is a key part of the government-sanctioned campaign of ethnic cleansing, which is at the heart of maintaining Israel's apartheid system,” said Amnesty International Secretary-General Agnès Callamard.
“What we are witnessing is a deliberate, government-led takeover, in complete violation of international law unfolding before the eyes of the entire world.”
Last week, Israel's finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced a major expansion of more than 2,000 homes in three Jewish settlements. Israel rejects international condemnation of the expanded settlements, citing historical ties to the land.
Israel has in the past condemned the allegations, which include allegations of “ethnic cleansing,” as reflecting long-standing prejudices. It did not immediately respond to Amnesty's report.
Much of the migration is driven by settlers who build settlements outside Palestinian land, which are illegal under Israeli law and built without the permission of the Israeli authorities – sometimes demolishing them but often failing to recognize them or re-legitimize them, Amnesty has previously said. The Amnesty report said that this program would not be possible without the support of the government.
The group was the latest in the international community to raise the alarm over Israel's actions in the region.
In recent weeks, human rights groups and foreign ministers have criticized the continued escalation of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians throughout the Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem – which United Nations experts have called aiding the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians, a term that refers to the forced expulsion of people.
“The relentless attacks of the settler-colonial movement, carried out with the support and connivance of the State of Israel, have become a daily terror in the lives of Palestinians, sowing fear, uncertainty, and deep insecurity that inevitably forces the forced displacement of the indigenous population,” a a group of 13 UN special rapporteurs appointed by the Human Rights Council in a statement dated June 1.
“The increasing violence, carried out with complete impunity, serves as a tool of coercion in the hands of the ruling regime, facilitating ethnic cleansing.”
The 149-page Amnesty report comes after new coordinated sanctions announced jointly by Canada, Britain, France and Norway on Tuesday against Israeli networks involved in financing, enabling and perpetrating violence in the West Bank. The four countries' measures were combined with sanctions announced last week by Australia and New Zealand, underscoring anger in many Western countries against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
More than 100 villages have been completely or partially wiped out: UN data
More than 100 villages in the West Bank were completely or partially evacuated between January 2023 and April 2026, according to UN data.
During that time, the UN tracked more than 7,280 incidents of Palestinian displacement due to the demolition of homes and buildings by Israeli forces, a number that includes people displaced more than once.
“Although no part of the West Bank has been spared, the continued migration of the Palestinian population will expose approximately 66 people.3 square kilometers of land to continue the expansion of settlements,” UN experts said in a statement.
The Israeli army is demolishing around 40 buildings in the West Bank as part of its campaign to expand the E1 settlement. The Palestinians say it is another example of increasing lawlessness and violence in an area considered important to the two-state solution.
Palestinian communities in Area C, a large part of the West Bank region which covers about 60 percent of the area and lives under the full control of the Israeli military and society, are equally affected, experts say.
According to UN figures, about 700,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and east of Jerusalem – areas that Israel seized in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war and claimed for the Palestinians as part of a future state.
Peace Now, an Israeli organization that monitors settlement expansion, said at least 212 of the 363 existing settlements in the West Bank have been built by 2023.
“Without accountability, Palestinian communities throughout the West Bank will disappear before our eyes. For too long the world has ignored the immense, incomprehensible suffering of the Palestinian people being uprooted and removed from the land they have inhabited for generations,” said Callamard..
Amnesty said its report looked at 27 villages and towns in the West Bank where Palestinians were displaced between 2023 and 2025. The researchers interviewed dozens of Palestinians and lawyers, spoke to witnesses of settler violence, watched more than 420 videos and analyzed government statements and other reports.
Israeli leaders have condemned the particularly brutal violence by Jewish immigrants but they tend to criticize themselves as different.
Amnesty said that resident violence is “not a mistake but an important part of the country's policy.”
Amnesty identified a number of bills in Israel's parliament, the Knesset, to extend Israeli civil law and jurisdiction over settlements, as well as courts that try Palestinians. Recently, the parliament approved a measure making the death penalty the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis.
The rights group said the mass exodus of Palestinian Bedouin communities in the area was caused by settler violence, the development of new settlements and Israeli occupation of large unregistered areas. Rights groups have raised concerns about this type of displacement before 2023, but they say it will intensify after Israel's attack led by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Dror Etkes, who heads the Kerem Navot settlement monitoring group, said that as of October 2023, settlers have occupied about 12.5 percent of the West Bank – land that Palestinians can no longer access or cross safely.
“Although many of these violations started long before the 37th government took office [in 2022]”Their acceleration and intensification since then requires the international community to fully confront the Israeli-led project and take decisive action to prevent the destruction of Palestinian communities and the occupation of the West Bank,” Amnesty's report said.
Callamard called on the international community to “suppress the authority of Israels to him i“immediately dismantle all Israeli settlements and outlying areas” and allow all displaced Palestinians to return to their homes.
