Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ of West Bank Bedouins

Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of an “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Bedouin and herding communities in the occupied West Bank,” charges that Israel dismissed as “false and baseless”. A new report by the rights group found that the campaign was aimed at accelerating the annexation of the Palestinian territory, with these rural communities bearing […]

Amnesty International accused Israel on Wednesday of an “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Bedouin and herding communities in the occupied West Bank,” charges that Israel dismissed as “false and baseless”.

A new report by the rights group found that the campaign was aimed at accelerating the annexation of the Palestinian territory, with these rural communities bearing the brunt of Israeli settler violence and forced displacement.

“Israeli authorities are accelerating annexation through a state-driven campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities” of the West Bank, said the report.

Amnesty said its research showed that 27 Bedouin and herding communities comprising hundreds of Palestinians were forcibly displaced between 2023 and 2025 or were at risk of displacement in the West Bank’s Area C, which encompasses 60 per cent of the territory and is under full Israeli control under the 1990s Oslo agreements.

In the report titled “Erasing anything Palestinian: Israel’s ethnic cleansing of West Bank Bedouin and herding communities”, Amnesty accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, one of Israel’s most right-wing to date, of catering to the settler movement’s religious nationalist agenda.

“It 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,” the report said.

Israel rejected the report.

“Amnesty International has long since become a delusional fringe political organisation whose anti-Israel agenda has eclipsed any commitment to facts, objectivity, or the genuine defence of human rights,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.

“This report is nothing more than another attempt to advance that agenda through false and baseless allegations that have no connection to reality whatsoever.”

Amnesty pointed to “explicit calls by Israeli officials for settlement expansion” and “measures aimed at minimising Palestinian presence in Area C”.

The “ethnic cleansing campaign is state-led, and state-sponsored, not driven by rogue settlers or so-called extremist ministers”, the report said.