Human rights NGO Amnesty International says Israel is erasing everything Palestinian from the West Bank. The group warned that it is the Israeli state leading the ethnic cleansing — not rogue settlers. Israeli violence in the West Bank has accelerated alongside the Gaza genocide.
Amnesty’s report is titled ‘Erasing anything Palestinian: Israel’s ethnic cleansing of West Bank Bedouin and herding communities‘. It can be read in full here.
Among the major findings was that:
Ethnic cleansing campaign is Israeli state-led, and state-sponsored, not driven by rogue settlers or so-called extremist ministers.
And that there has been an:
Exponential rise in state-backed settler violence terrorising and expelling thousands of Palestinians to annex land.
The report calls for states to:
Ban trade and investment. Impose targeted sanctions. End the impunity. Governments enabling Israel’s occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing must act now.
And it is very clear that increased violence in the West Bank is due to international inaction on Gaza:
Tacit or explicit international support for Israeli crimes, including genocide and apartheid and the failure to act resolutely to stop them has emboldened the Israeli authorities to escalate a brutal campaign to forcibly displace Palestinians and expand its control over land in the West Bank.
Amnesty detailed how Israeli authorities:
are accelerating annexation through a state-driven campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities in Area C of the occupied West Bank, while committing the crime against humanity of forcible transfer.
Amnesty — Explicit Israeli policy of violence
The NGO said it was now an “explicit policy objective” for the Israeli government to annex the area. The Israeli state has:
accelerated settlement expansion and land grabs, increased financial and logistical support to settlements, and it has armed settlers, thereby enabling a brutal state-sanctioned campaign of settler violence and of forced displacement of Palestinians from Area C.
Area C makes up “60% of the occupied West Bank”:
Palestinians are being forcibly erased from their ancestral lands, cut off from their livelihoods, and terrorised into fleeing their homes amidst an unprecedented surge in settler attacks.
Amnesty called on the international community to intervene against Israel’s brazen ethnic cleansing, but recognised their consistent failure to act. Researchers interviewed Palestinians, activists, lawyers and journalists and assessed hundreds of videos of the violent land-grabs.
The Israeli government said in response to the report:
its forces respond to incidents of settler violence, arresting suspects, when necessary, and investigating cases where forces may have failed to comply with orders or failed to intervene to stop settler violence.
Evidence documented by Amnesty presents a different reality.
Under the current Netanyahu government, settler violence has “surged dramatically”:
leading to record levels of killings and injuries, displacement, property destruction and unlawful land appropriation.
Amnesty chief Agnès Callamard rejected the idea this was about rogue actors or a few Zionist ministers:
What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation, in complete violation of international law unfolding before the eyes of the entire world.
Callamard urged states to sanction Israeli ministers and comply with:
the International Criminal Court’s investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine, as well as open their own investigations into crimes under international law committed in the OPT.
On 9 June, the UK and others said they would sanction ‘networks’ involved in settling the West Bank. Six entities will face:
asset freezes, as well as travel bans and director disqualifications where appropriate.
This does not seem to include the Israeli state which, as Amnesty has shown, is the driving force behind the new violence and displacement. With the UK already complicit in genocide in Gaza, it seems the Starmer government will do nothing to aid Palestinians in the West Bank either. Another mark of shame, without question.
Featured image via Erik Marmor/Getty Images
By Joe Glenton
