LONDON — The Israeli government is presiding over a deliberate campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and the Western governments have done too little to prevent the violence, a new report by Amnesty International has claimed.
The report said the ongoing activities could not be blamed solely on rogue settlers or hawkish ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet.
The damning report by Amnesty International comes as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has said settler violence in the occupied West Bank has reached record levels, with an average of six attacks daily causing casualties or damage.
Oxfam also released reports this week documenting a rise in state-backed Israeli settler violence across the occupied West Bank over the past three years.
An exponential rise in state-backed settler violence has expelled thousands of Palestinians and allowed the annexation of their land, Amnesty said in its 150-page report.
The failure of world leaders to impose strict sanctions on Israel is emboldening the Israeli authorities to extend their control over the territory, it added.
The Amnesty report also took aim at the “ineffective words and half-measures” offered by the UK government to help tackle crimes carried out in the settlements, and its refusal to ban trade or investment linked to elements involved in the occupation, according to the Independent newspaper.
The report came a day after UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper laid out a series of new sanctions on six organisations and one individual involved in “financing, enabling and carrying out” settler violence in the West Bank.
The number of such attacks this year has surpassed 1,000, said Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general.
“Just last week, settler attacks resulted in the injury of more than 30 Palestinians and widespread damage to property, central infrastructure as well as livelihoods,” Dujarric said.
“The current pace of settler attacks causing casualties or property damage, with an average of six incidents per day, is higher than any year on record,” he said.
In its report, Amnesty cited UN data showing that at least 117 Bedouin and herding Palestinian communities faced either full or partial displacement between January 2023 and April 2026, with at least 5,910 people forcibly displaced by the end of April 2026.
In the same period, data from OCHA shows that the Israeli authorities demolished 3,407 Palestinian homes and structures in part of the West Bank known as Area C, displacing 2,996 Palestinians.
More than a half million Israelis live in the West Bank — excluding East Jerusalem, which has been annexed by Israel — in settlements deemed illegal by the United Nations under international law.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.
Violence has escalated in the West Bank during and since the Gaza war, which was triggered by an unprecedented attack on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7,
Source: Saudi Gazette