The Israeli government is carrying out a state-led campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank which can’t be blamed on rogue settlers or extremist ministers, a damning new report has claimed.
An exponential rise in state-backed settler violence has expelled thousands of Palestinians and allowed the annexation of their land, Amnesty International said in a 150-page report.
International failure to impose strict sanctions on Israel are emboldening Israeli authorities to extend their control over the territory, it added.
The report also took aim at the “ineffective words and half-measures” from the UK government to help tackle crimes in the settlements, and its refusal to ban trade or investment into elements of the occupation.
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 – but several MPs told The Independent these measures fail to sufficiently address the scale of the issues facing Palestinians in the West Bank.
In its report, Amnesty cited UN data showing that at least 117 Bedouin and herding Palestinian communities have faced either full or partial displacement between January 2023 and April 2026, with at least 5,910 forcible displaced by the end of April 2026.
In the same period, OCHA data shows Israeli authorities demolished 3,407 Palestinian homes and structures in part of the West Bank known as Area C, displacing 2,996 Palestinians.
Last year, The Independent spoke to Palestinians forcibly evicted from the settlement of Khalet al-Daba’a in the South Hebron Hills, a village which was then entirely demolished by Israeli bulldozers.
This week, Palestinians near the southern city of Hebron have been protesting against land confiscations in the Israeli occupied West Bank.
Images show Israeli settlers and soldiers protecting a bulldozer as it operated on Palestinian land near the village of Dura as the protests took place.
“The scale and intensity of Israeli settler and some military actions in the West Bank have reached horrifying and deeply alarming levels,” said Ahmed F. Alkhatib, a resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative.
“Property destruction, targeted assaults, thefts, harassments, killings, daily intimidation of Palestinian civilians, and routine attacks against entire villages and communities with full impunity are no longer the work of a few rogue actors.
“They reflect a coordinated campaign enabled and, in many cases, actively supported by significant elements of the Israeli government and state.”
Israel says tightening control in the territory is necessary to guarantee security for the settlements, and has previously warned of the risk of an October 7-style attack on the settlements.
“We are required to maintain a high level of preparedness and alertness, while using the time to strengthen our professional foundations,” defence minister Israel Katz said in December.
In February, it approved new measures allowing it to register West Bank land as “state property” – a move that Mr Katz said would “strengthen, consolidate and broaden” Jewish settlement in the region.
The Independent has approached the Israeli Foreign Ministry for comment.
Amnesty’s report found that Israeli settlers had established 363 outposts in the occupied West Bank by the end of April 2026, citing the NGO Peace Now, with as many as 212 created since 2023 with the active encouragement of Israeli authorities.
At the same time, the Israeli government has been carrying out land grabs, the report states. Nearly 58 per cent of the land in Area C – which makes up nearly two thirds of the West Bank – is unregistered, meaning its ownership is not recorded on a state-maintained registry.
But by February 2026, Israeli authorities had seized half of this land through state land declarations.
Agnès Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said: “Over the past three and a half years Israeli authorities have accelerated a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, uprooting, dispossessing and forcibly transferring Palestinian communities.
“What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation, in complete violation of international law unfolding before the eyes of the entire world.
“Countries, particularly those with influence over Israel, including the USA, the UK, Germany, as well as Italy and other EU and Arab states, must immediately ban all trade, investment and any form of cooperation or financial assistance that contribute to Israel’s unlawful occupation, system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”
Addressing the UK government’s latest sanctions, Labour MP Richard Burgeon told The Independent that the Amnesty report shows that the “government’s approach has been wholly inadequate”, and called for “the kind of widespread sanctions on Israel that were quite rightly brought against Russia following their unlawful invasion of Ukraine”.
Jeremy Corbyn, former Labour leader, said Israel “continues to expand its illegal occupation because it knows it can” and that there will be “no consequences”.
He said the UK government had “normalised ethnic cleansing and emboldened Israel to commit war crimes” and criticised its “piecemeal sanctions”.
The Independent has approached the UK Foreign Office.
