Amnesty International has released a landmark report accusing Israel of conducting a state-orchestrated campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. The 149-page document, based on verified video, satellite imagery and policy analysis, details a surge in settler violence since 2023 that it says is deliberately financed and coordinated by Israeli authorities. The campaign, Amnesty argues, aims to annex the territory permanently by forcing Palestinian communities from their ancestral lands.

The report’s findings coincide with grim statistics on civilian casualties from explosive weapons. According to the International Network on Explosive Weapons, more than 22,600 civilians were killed by such arms across 65 countries in the past year, a 21 per cent decrease from the previous annual toll. Yet Israeli armed forces accounted for 56 per cent of all recorded civilian deaths — a stark indication of the war’s asymmetrical toll, despite ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon.

From European capitals to the Middle East, the Amnesty report has intensified calls for accountability. France and several EU members have expressed deep concern, while the Arab League denounced what it called ‘colonial practices’. Washington’s response has been more cautious; the Biden administration has criticised settler violence but refrained from using the term ‘ethnic cleansing’, which carries specific legal weight. In the Global South, however, the findings are seen as confirming a long-held view of Israeli policy as inherently expansionist.

Analysts note that the documentation of systematic displacement and the disproportionate civilian harm recorded by weapons monitors will complicate international diplomacy. With the Israeli government openly discussing annexation and violence in the West Bank escalating alongside the war in Gaza, the prospects for a negotiated two-state solution appear increasingly remote. The reports, observers stress, leave the international community with a stark choice: act to enforce international law or accept a reality that amounts to de facto annexation.