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

RAMALLAH, Palestinian territories

Palestinians stand at the entrance of the Bedouin community of Dar Abu Faza as Israeli settlers pass through with their herd of livestock, on the outskirts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank village of Taybeh, on June 9, 2026.

Amnesty International accused Israel on June 10 of conducting an “ethnic cleansing” campaign against Bedouin and herding communities in the occupied West Bank, saying the measures were designed to accelerate the annexation of the Palestinian territory.

A new report by the rights group found that these rural Palestinian communities are 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 released on June 10.

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 percent of the territory and is under 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 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.

In an apparent effort to counter arguments by Israeli officials that settler violence is caused by bad actors in that community, Amnesty pointed to “explicit calls by Israeli officials for settlement expansion” and “measures aimed at minimizing 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 concluded.

Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who himself lives in a settlement, is a vocal proponent of West Bank’s annexation and on June 9 was banned from France for actively promoting it.