JERUSALEM (AP) 鈥� Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of carrying out a of Palestinians from the occupied with the intention to annex the Palestinian territory.
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.
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.
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 , a figure that includes people who were displaced more than once.
Israel has in the past denounced such accusations 鈥� including allegations of 鈥渆thnic cleansing,鈥� a term referring to forced expulsions of population by violence 鈥� as reflecting longtime unfair bias. It did not immediately respond to the report.
鈥淭hese abuses are not the result of a few 鈥榖ad apples.鈥� Settler violence is a鈥痗ore鈥痗omponent鈥痮f a state-sanctioned campaign of ethnic cleansing,” said Agn猫s鈥疌allamard, the head of Amnesty. 鈥淲hat we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation, in complete violation of international law unfolding before the eyes of the entire world.鈥�
Israeli leaders have condemned particularly grave violence by Jewish settlers but tend to . Key Cabinet ministers from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government are pushing for a formal annexation of the territory, and officials have voiced support for Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank.
Amnesty says it has identified dozens of bills in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, to extend Israeli civil law and jurisdiction over settlement blocs, as well as over courts that try Palestinians. Recently, the parliament the default punishment for West Bank Palestinians convicted of killing Israelis.
Last year, U.S. President said he would . The U.S.-brokered ceasefire between Israel and the Hamas militant group that aimed to stop the war in Gaza also .
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 .
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.
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.
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.
The group also said the international community has failed to act to stop the displacement.
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.
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 鈥� land that Palestinians can no longer access or cross safely.
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