Good morning.
Thank you for attending this presentation of Amnesty International’s report, Erasing anything Palestinian: Israel’s ethnic cleansing of West Bank Bedouin and herding communities.
We are launching our report from Berlin to highlight that the international community – and in particular Germany and other European Union member states – has enabled Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing and the crimes against humanity. And to spotlight the corollary – Germany and other states have a critical role in ending that suffering – in ending the dispossession and the violence we see daily broadcast onto our televisions and phone screens.
That violence being rained down upon Palestinians has shaken the conscience of people in Europe and around the world, thousands upon thousands have repeatedly protested their governments’ complicity but still we-the-peoples are not being listened to.
Yesterday when visiting a Roma settlement in Slovenia, I met a 60-year-old man and his family. Their home – a lean shack. No running water. Children and stray dogs running wild. The state’s disdain and discrimination written deep onto the bodies of all I met. I explained to them that I was in Slovenia to speak about Palestine. The man looked at me with pain in his eyes: “Palestine,” he said, “this is truly bad, a hell on earth. It is just unimaginable how much devastation one crazy person can do. It is so bad.”
If only political leaders in Germany and elsewhere in Europe had even an iota of his compassion and outrage at Israel’s campaign against the very existence of Palestinians.
-I-
And, in painstaking detail, our report demonstrates why they should.
Palestinians Bedouins and herding communities have been erased from their ancestral land, cut off from their pastures, and terrorized into fleeing their homes amid this unprecedented surge in settler attacks fully condoned and facilitated by the Israeli government.
Our 150-page report proves that the Israeli government is engaged in the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank – characterised by the forcible transfers of Palestinians, a multitude of war crimes and crime against humanity.
Between January 2023 and April 2026, 117 Palestinian communities across the West Bank have faced full or partial displacement due to state-backed Israeli settler violence and related restrictions. Most are Bedouin and herding communities located in Area C.
Behind the number, there is the abject violence committed in complete impunity. A surge of violence, by settlers with state security backing or by the state itself.
The daily terror they endure means daily, simple acts – things people the world over take for granted – have for Palestinians become occasions of violence.
In the West Bank, in Area C, these acts can turn lethal – a child lying dead on his mother’s lap after an encounter with an IDF patrol while on a ride to visit family members; an elderly Bedouin, lying on the ground, head wounds, his eyes looking onto his field, while settlers, sometimes children themselves, armed, full of hatred, cheering on the violence, slaughter his sheep; destroy his harvest.
Homes and livelihoods left in ruins; mothers accustomed now to sleeping in their clothes and shoes on so that should an attack occur in the dark of the night they can run faster, with greater dignity.
Who has not seen such scenes playing over and over again our tv screens, on our social medias streams?
And what do we do?
And I ask myself, what do they do, our elected officials, and their loyal civil servants, how do they make sense of their silence, of their support, of their complicity even?
-II-
Our report shows that what is happening is not a historical or political aberration.
Yes, the 37th Israel government – a coalition between the Likud, the Jewish Power and Religious Zionism parties – has accelerated and amplified a campaign of ethnic cleansing and, in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks of October 2023, intensified longstanding oppressive practices, making them more aggressive, and more destructive.
They have embedded settler priorities directly into state policy, accelerating settlement expansion and land grabs, increasing financial and logistical support for settlements, and arming settlers themselves.
-III-
But the ethnic cleansing campaign is NOT new. It is rooted in Israel’s longstanding system of apartheid, a crime against humanity perpetrated by Israel against all Palestinians under its control for years. Decades.
Since Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (which it illegally annexed), and the Gaza Strip, successive Israeli governments have advanced annexation plans through policies to facilitate land grabs, maximise Israeli control over territory while minimising Palestinian presence.
-IV-
The campaign is NOT driven by some rogue settlers or extremist ministers.
The international community is guilty of mischaracterizing the annexation as “settlers’ violence” driven by rogue elements or “extremist” ministers only.
As recently as yesterday, a number of European governments announced yet another round of sanctions – this time against Minister Smotrich. While Amnesty International certainly agrees with both the sanctions and the characterization of the Minister among others, what we profoundly disagree with is the sub-text – which sees Europe failing to confront the systemic, historical and governmental forces underpinning the campaign.
-V-
So for avoidance of doubt: ethnic cleansing in the West Bank is state-sanctioned, state-implemented and state-enforced.
Our report demonstrates that it is the intent of the state to cleanse Area C of the Palestinian People as evidenced by:
- Explicit calls of Israeli officials for settlement expansion
- The substance of the coalition’s agreements
- Annexation-oriented legislation
- Measures transferring powers in the West Bank from military to civilian authorities in violation of international humanitarian law.
State intent is reflected in:
- The surge in state land declarations and accelerated settlement expansion
- Simplified procedures for settlement approvals and changes in land registration
- Retroactive legalization of outposts
- Increased financial and political support for settler infrastructure
- Measures aimed at minimizing Palestinian presence in Area C, the demolition of Palestinian property as well as systemic restrictions on Palestinian movement and access to land and water.
By 30 April this year, a total of 102 new settlements had been declared by the government – by far the largest number of new settlements authorized by any government in Israel’s history. It includes 34 new settlements declared in April – the largest number an Israeli government has ever approved in one decision.
-VI-
The government’s goal is clear: state-led annexation in complete violation of international law.
It is uprooting and dispossessing Palestinian communities to pave the way for full-on Jewish Israeli demographic dominance in this area.
The Israeli government has made formal annexation an explicit policy objective – predicated on the vision of a “Greater Israel,” that treats the entirety of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as an integral part of Israel.
In September 2025, the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, announced plans to annex 82% of the West Bank, stating that the top guideline should be “maximum land, minimum Arab population”.
Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir called for establishing Israeli “sovereignty” and encouraging the forcible transfer of Palestinians living there: “because this is our land, and because we need to tell the whole world: ‘this is ours forever and ever’… Sovereignty, and also encouraging [Palestinian] voluntary immigration, which we should do also in Judea and Samaria.”
They are speaking as the state.
-VII-
Israeli authorities are acting in brazen defiance of multiple UN resolutions and the International Court of Justice’s 2024 Advisory Opinion declaring Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory unlawful.
I was planning to name the resolutions – but it would have taken the entire hour of this press conference.
I would have liked to name all the legal provisions that are violated. But it would have taken another hour or more.
Law after law, resolution after resolution.
VIOLATED.
So much so in fact that we have entered a new era now.
It is no longer deniability.
The Israeli government and their supporters have moved from denying they are violating the law, to insisting now that international law itself is dead, that the whole multilateral system is on its deathbed.
This is what has also been allowed.
To justify its hegemonic project predicated on racial superiority, the destruction of another racial group, and their forced displacement – the Israeli authorities, with the support of the US, are prepared to annihilate what took 80 years to build up – an albeit imperfect multilateral system, but one founded nonetheless on rules, rooted in law and dedicated to peace and security.
-VIII-
Faced with the surge in state-backed settler violence and Israel’s shift towards formally annexing Palestinian territory under Israeli law, the international community has repeatedly failed to act.
States have been either actively or passively complicit in the face of Israel’s repeated and gross violations of international law and UN General Assembly and Security Council resolutions.
In doing so, they have helped create an environment of pervasive impunity that has only fueled further settler violence.
Make no mistake: governments know full well that Israel’s conduct in the West Bank is illegal. Many have openly condemned Israel’s actions. But words alone are cheap.
Some are issuing targeted sanctions against a few individuals and a handful of settler organizations.
But this is woefully insufficient to tackling these systemic violations that have accelerated before the eyes of the international community.
How dare states ignore the immense, unfathomable suffering of Palestinians as they are uprooted and erased from land they have lived on for generations?
Without urgent action to hold Israel accountable, the remaining Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities across the West Bank will vanish before our very eyes.
-IX-
Israel’s turbo-charged campaign of ethnic cleansing must be met with an equal surge of measures by states around the world.
The economic, diplomatic and political support that allows Israel to continue its unlawful occupation, genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing must end. The channelings of funding, arms and institutional support to the settlement enterprise must end.
We are calling on states to ban all trade, investment relations and activities that contribute to, or are directly linked to Israel’s unlawful occupation, system of apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
This must include banning the provision of funds or any other assistance to organizations that are integral to the settlement enterprise and apartheid system.
The EU in particular must leverage its influence by expediting the long overdue suspension of its association agreement with Israel and suspending visa-free access to all Israeli settlers living in the OPT.
We are also calling on states to impose unilateral, targeted sanctions, against senior Israeli officials directly implicated in Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign, including Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel Katz, Bezalel Smotrich, and Orit Strock.
We have identified these officials for their alleged responsibility for serious crimes under international law perpetrated against Palestinians in the West Bank, including the forcible transfer of Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities, and for maintaining an unlawful occupation and the system and crime against humanity of apartheid.
The sanctions against them should include travel bans, asset freezes, and other targeted financial restrictions, in line with states’ obligations under international law.
Finally, states must support and cooperate with the ICC’s investigation into the situation in the State of Palestine, as well as opening their own investigations into crimes under international law committed in the OPT.
World leaders must send the Israeli authorities an unequivocal message: there will be no more acquiescence to Israel’s ethnic cleansing and annexation.
There will be no business as usual with Israel until its apartheid and unlawful occupation have ended for good.
And there will be consequences for those who have perpetrated crimes under international law.
Human dignity is not a commodity.