Israel is carrying out the state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing of Palestinian Bedouin and herder communities in the occupied West Bank , a new report by Amnesty International has said.
The report, released on Wednesday, details how the displacement of Bedouins and herders in Area C - which is under full Israeli military and civil control and covers 60% of the West Bank - is a direct result of Israeli state policy and support for violent Jewish settlers .
At least 117 Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities comprising a total of 5,910 people were partially or fully displaced from their land between January 2023 and April 2026, according to the report. Most of this displacement was attributed to settler attacks.
Amnesty International's Researcher for Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Budour Hassan, told The New Arab: "Contrary to what many in the international community would like to suggest or pretend, we're talking about state policy, we're talking about a campaign sponsored, supported, armed, [and] granted impunity by the state."
"There's no way to pretend otherwise," she added. Aiding settlers, displacing Palestinians Titled 'Erasing anything Palestinian: Israel's ethnic cleansing of West Bank Bedouin and herding communities', the report draws on the testimony of 64 people, including 49 Palestinians from affected communities, as well as other documentation to map how settler violence is an "integral part of an organized state policy".
Since the formation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government in December 2022, Israel has "openly embraced the settler movement's vision of 'Greater Israel'" according to the report. It argues that state policy has accelerated the forced displacement of Palestinians from their land while aiding and abetting settler violence - particularly following the outbreak of Israel's war on Gaza in October 2023.
This includes giving settlers funding for arms, vehicles and drones to sustain illegal outposts, and allowing the army and police to participate alongside settlers in attacks, rather than preventing or arresting the perpetrators of violence - essentially entrenching impunity, Amnesty says.
These have led to attacks on homes, villages and property; harassment, threats and physical assaults; the targeting and killing of livestock; the destruction of agricultural fields; and severe restrictions on grazing and access to water.
The direct state support for settlers comes amid an active policy of settlement expansion and seizure of Palestinian land.
Amnesty says that the Israeli government promoted plans for 50,785 settlement housing units between 2023 and 2025, with 27,941 units approved in 2025 alone.
During the same period, Palestinians were effectively barred from building new housing, with permits granted for only nine homes, while 3,407 Palestinian structures in Area C were demolished.
Palestinians displaced by Israeli state policies and settler attacks are often pushed into other parts of the occupied West Bank, cut off from their land and livelihoods, as these areas frequently lack adequate herding and grazing grounds.
"They have to stay in tents, some of them have to stay on the lands of the villagers themselves, which obviously creates tensions and frictions with host communities," Budour Hassan told The New Arab .
"Many of them have to rely constantly on the humanitarian aid they receive from international organisations. They were forced to sell their sheep… what we've witnessed is absolute misery," she added. Calls for sanctions Amnesty outlined how their research "shows conclusively that… Israeli authorities are committing serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in the pursuit of a policy of ethnic cleansing in Area C of the occupied West Bank."
This includes unlawful deportation and transfer.
Amnesty further added that settler violence is "a central, state-sanctioned component of an ethnic cleansing campaign that serves to entrench Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians, expand Israel's control over and fragmentation of Palestinian territory and ultimately to ensure its annexation."
The rights group calls on states to ban trade, investment, and activities that contribute to Israel's campaign of displacement in the West Bank, as well as urging the international community to impose sanctions on several high-profile ministers within the government.
These include Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz from the right-wing Likud party, alongside extremist National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir of Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Minister for Settlements and National Missions Orit Strock from the Religious Zionist party.
Budour Hassan told The New Arab that "any attempt to punish a few settlers or impose sanctions on settlers without addressing the root causes of this violence, without naming this violence as it should be named, state-backed terror, is horrifically missing the point."
She warned that if the state-led policy is not stopped, "the entirety of Palestinian existence, particularly Bedouin and herding communities that have lived here for generations, is at risk of erasure."