Unprecedented Displacement: 36,000 West Bank Residents Flee in a Single Year
The United Nations has called on Israel to immediately halt its dramatic expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank. The UN expressed deep concern about “ethnic cleansing,” with more than 36,000 Palestinian residents displaced within a single year.
A new report from the UN human rights office, which examined the twelve-month period until 31 October 2024, warned that the increasingly rapid expansion of Israel’s illegal settlements and annexation of much of the West Bank have caused displacement that is “unprecedented.”
“The displacement of more than 36,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank constitutes mass expulsion of Palestinians on an unprecedented scale, which constitutes illegal displacement prohibited under international humanitarian law,” the report stated, according to news agency AFP on Tuesday (17 March 2025).
“Together with the mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, this appears to demonstrate a coordinated Israeli policy for forced mass transfer across occupied territories, aimed at permanent displacement, thus raising concerns about ethnic cleansing,” the report added.
The report noted approvals by Israeli authorities for 36,973 housing units in settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and approximately 27,200 units in other areas of the West Bank.
Additionally, during the twelve-month period, “84 new settlement outposts were established throughout the occupied West Bank, bringing the total number to more than 300,” the report stated.
Besides approximately three million Palestinians, more than 500,000 Israeli residents live in settlements and outposts in the West Bank, which are deemed illegal under international law.
Violence in the West Bank, which has been under Israeli occupation since 1967, has escalated sharply following Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023 against Israel, which triggered the war in Gaza.
There has also been an increase in deadly attacks by Israeli settlers in the West Bank since the onset of the Iran war, according to Palestinian authorities and the UN, with at least six Palestinians killed since early March this year.
According to AFP calculations based on figures from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli forces or settlers have killed at least 1,045 Palestinians—many of them militants, but also dozens of civilians—in the West Bank since the Gaza war began.
Meanwhile, official Israeli figures state that 45 Israelis, including soldiers and civilians, have been killed in attacks by Palestinians or during Israeli military operations.