Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of accelerating a state-driven campaign of “ethnic cleansing” and forcible transfer of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, in a new 150-page report focused on Bedouin and herding communities in Area C of the territory, Anadolu reports.
“Over the past three and a half years Israeli authorities have accelerated a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, uprooting, dispossessing and forcibly transferring Palestinian communities,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said in a statement.
“This is not the work of rogue actors or what the international community has repeatedly labelled as extremist settlers, organizations or one or two ministers. What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation, in complete violation of international law unfolding before the eyes of the entire world,” said the report.
“The international community has either been complicit in or far too passive in the face of Israel’s repeated and gross violations of international law, and its flouting of UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions. It must clearly signal that the era of tacit acquiescence to Israel’s ethnic cleansing and annexation is over,” it added.
At least 117 predominantly Bedouin and herding communities have faced full or partial displacement between January 2023 and April 2026, according to UN data that was cited by Amnesty.
The rights group noted that Israeli policy has increasingly enabled settlement expansion, land seizures and settler violence, which together have created conditions forcing Palestinians from their homes. By April 2026, at least 5,910 people had been forcibly displaced, it said.
Amnesty also points to a sharp rise in settlement outposts and demolitions, citing 363 outposts established in the West Bank, many since 2023, and the demolition of 3,407 Palestinian homes and structures between 2023 and 2026.
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The report claims evidence of coordinated state policy aimed at “formal annexation” of Area C — a section of the territory that remains under full Israeli security and civil control under the Oslo Accords, and which makes up more than 60% of the West Bank — alongside financial and political support for settlements and increased transfers of authority from military to civilian control.
Israel did not immediately respond to the report’s core allegations, though a Defense Ministry response cited in the report said forces act against settler violence and investigate failures to intervene.
Amnesty said it examined 27 communities, interviewed dozens of Palestinians and reviewed hundreds of images and videos.
The report also criticizes the UK, with Amnesty UK urging it to ban trade linked to settlements and impose broader sanctions.
Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said that “the current UK government position of condemning Israeli settlements while continuing to allow trade with them is not just incoherent but is encouraging the Israeli authorities to escalate its brutal ethnic cleansing campaign in the West Bank.”
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