The human rights organization "Amnesty International" has accused the Israeli government of turning the official annexation of the occupied West Bank into a declared political goal, DPA reported, BTA reported.
“Over the past three and a half years, the Israeli authorities have accelerated a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, evicting, dispossessing and forcibly transferring Palestinian communities,“ said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard in a statement released today after the release of a report.
The organization stressed that the attacks were not the work of a handful of malicious individuals.
“The violence from "The settlers' actions are a major component of a state-sanctioned campaign of ethnic cleansing that is central to the maintenance of Israel's apartheid system," it said.
A report by the UN Human Rights Office warned in March of war crimes being committed in the West Bank. The vastly expanded settlement activity demonstrates a coordinated approach and a policy of mass displacement, it said.
"Amnesty International" has accused Israel of forcibly evicting Palestinians from their lands, depriving them of their livelihoods and forcing them to flee. The attacks are "openly tolerated and actively facilitated" by the Israeli government.
Callamard also criticized the international community for being "complicit or too passive in the face of Israel's repeated and flagrant violations of international law". "It must send a clear signal that the era of tacit acquiescence to Israeli ethnic cleansing and annexation is over," Callamard said.
Israel captured the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, during the 1967 Middle East war and is now home to more than 700,000 Israeli settlers among an estimated 3 million Palestinians. The Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their future state with East Jerusalem as its capital, a demand that Israel opposes.
Israel distinguishes between settlements officially authorized by the state and so-called outposts, built without permits, which are sometimes later legalized. However, the United Nations and most countries consider settlements in the occupied territories to be in violation of international law.
The United Nations says that the expansion of settlements sabotages the prospects for a two-state solution - a position that the Israeli government rejects. Following the unprecedented attack carried out by the Palestinian group "Hamas" on 7 October 2023 in Israel and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip, violence by radical Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank has increased significantly.