Amnesty Reveals Israel's Intensifying Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinians

Amnesty International has revealed increasingly intensive ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Israel. The human rights organisation is outraged because Israel has not curbed its brutality against Palestinians. Amnesty observed that Israel’s brutality is fuelled by the implicit and explicit support of the international community for Israeli crimes. Amnesty stated that Israel is increasing the forced displacement of Palestinians to expand its control over areas in the West Bank. “Israel is accelerating annexation through a state-driven campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Bedouin communities and Palestinian herders in Area C of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, while committing the crime against humanity of forced displacement,” said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard on Wednesday. Agnès’s remarks referred to an Amnesty report titled “‘Erasing all things Palestinian’: Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Bedouin and herding communities in the West Bank”. Through the report, Amnesty revealed that Israel is making the formal annexation of Palestinian territory a goal of their policy. “They are accelerating settlement expansion and land grabs, increasing financial and logistical support for settlements, and arming settlers, thus enabling a brutal, state-backed campaign of violence and the forced expulsion of Palestinians from Area C,” Agnès said. Agnès explained that this area encompasses more than 60 percent of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The location is used by Israel to control land and demographics, given its natural resources, vital grazing and agricultural land, which increasingly diminishes the Palestinian population. “Over the past three and a half years, Israel has accelerated an ethnic cleansing campaign in the West Bank, uprooting, dispossessing, and forcibly transferring Palestinian communities. This is not the doing of individual actors, or what the international community has repeatedly dismissed as merely the actions of extremist settlers, organisations, or one or two ministers. What we are witnessing is a deliberate, state-led annexation, in full violation of international law and taking place in plain sight of the entire world,” Agnès said. In its report, Amnesty International examined 27 Bedouin and herding communities in Area C that were forcibly displaced between 2023 and 2025 or are at risk of displacement. The research team interviewed 45 Palestinians from 12 communities who were displaced or at risk, as well as 19 lawyers, activists who witnessed settler violence incidents, journalists, and representatives of Israeli and Palestinian NGOs. Amnesty International also verified more than 420 videos and images, and conducted analysis of official government statements, agreements, legislation, governance changes, court records, maps, satellite imagery, UN and civil society reports, and other open-source materials. Agnès shared her findings with Israeli authorities on 13 May. Israel’s Ministry of Defence responded on 23 May, stating that its forces had responded to settler violence incidents, including arresting suspects if necessary. However, evidence documented by Amnesty International shows a different reality. “This includes evidence of Israeli intent to commit ethnic cleansing and annex Area C,” Agnès said. Furthermore, the Amnesty report detailed that long-standing violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank is actually increasing currently. This situation has led to a record number of killings and injuries, expulsions, property destruction, and illegal land seizures. “This research also shows that Israeli authorities have deliberately created a widespread environment of impunity for settlers who commit violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, thereby fuelling further violence,” Agnès said.