Amnesty Warns of Ethnic Cleansing Push in West Bank
The London-based rights group urged governments to sanction Israeli officials implicated in grave breaches of international law, prohibit trade with illegal Israeli settlements, and stop supplying weapons and security equipment to Israel.
The warning followed a string of recent assaults by Israeli settlers on Palestinian farmers in the West Bank, as well as on European diplomats and an American photojournalist working for a major U.S. daily newspaper.
“Amnesty International has long been sounding the alarm over the exponential rise in state-driven settler violence against Palestinians, which has sought, through terror-inspiring means, to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the occupied West Bank,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
“This rise of violence has been fuelled by the international community’s persistent failure to take meaningful action against the very system enabling the continued oppression of Palestinians,” she added.
“Attacks are not isolated acts, but a central policy of the Israeli state,” Morayef said.
She pressed governments to take concrete steps to honor their obligations under international law and to avoid complicity in violations and crimes against Palestinians.
Amnesty also demanded an end to every form of trade, investment and cooperation “that contribute to maintaining the unlawful occupation, apartheid and the ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing.”
Morayef also took aim at senior Israeli officials and election candidates from across the political spectrum who have sought to cast settler attacks “as the work of a few individuals.”
She described that framing as a gross distortion of the truth, given what she called “state-sponsored brutality.”
“These attacks must generate a strong response by states that claim to oppose Israel’s annexation of Palestinian territory,” she added.
Israel has occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 1967. Under international law, Israeli settlements in the occupied territory are illegal.
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