A leading Israeli rights group says the country is carrying out “an elimination project” in the occupied West Bank to dismantle Palestinian life and forcibly turn the area into a permanently Jewish-Israeli region.
B’Tselem, one of the most recognised Israeli human rights organisations, said Israeli policy in the area has “entered a new phase” in recent years, under which violence, land grabs, movement restrictions, economic “strangulation”, and social and political destruction have pushed Palestinian life in the region to the brink.
In a report, Yuli Novak, B’Tselem’s executive director, said the strategy has been “central to settler colonialist projects throughout history”.
The warning comes as Israeli military and settler violence in the West Bank continues to escalate, with Israel’s government facing widespread accusations of fanning the flames of violence.
The authors of the report referenced the comments of Israeli political leaders and military officials, including the senior general in the West Bank, Avi Bluth, who said earlier in the year that “we’re killing like we haven’t killed since 1967”.
Last week, 12 of Israel's western allies announced sanctions against illegal settlements in the West Bank, including the UK, with which Israel is now embroiled in a diplomatic crisis.
Ms Novak called for more international action against Israel. “Governments cannot condemn these crimes while granting Israel the impunity to continue,” she said at a press conference in Jerusalem.
“Together with international institutions, they must use every means available under international law to stop Israel’s crimes and halt the machinery of violence and destruction that is tearing Palestinian life apart.
“Recent steps by the UK and other governments matter, because they begin to move from condemnation to consequences,” Ms Novak added. “But the response cannot stop with measures focused only on settlements. The violations described here are funded, protected and embedded in Israeli state policy, and carried out within a system of impunity.
“The genocide in Gaza should have fundamentally changed international policy towards the Israeli regime. It didn't. The same international community is now enabling the destruction of Palestinian collective life in the West Bank.”
The report, titled The Elimination Project, comes as Israel prepares for elections late next month at the end of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s term. His ultranationalist coalition rapidly accelerated Israel’s takeover of the West Bank, under way since it occupied the territory in 1967.
Ms Novak said even if Mr Netanyahu’s far-right government is defeated in elections, there will be no change to Israel's approach to the West Bank.
“There is agreement among the entire Israeli-Jewish political spectrum in their attitudes towards Palestinians,” she warned. “There is a total consensus about keeping control, keeping Jewish supremacy and also about what Israel is conducting in Gaza.”
The report drew on more than 2,000 testimonies gathered over the past three years. One was from Khaled Bani Odeh, 11, who watched Israeli forces kill his parents and siblings as they were driving home after a trip to the city of Nablus.
“He remembers the family talking and laughing [before they were attacked] by undercover Israelis forces,” said Kareem Jubran, B’Tselem field research director.
“Khaled’s father, mother and two little brothers were killed. Khaled and his older brother survived. Khaled testified that soldiers pulled them from the car, beat him and interrogated him. The two surviving children were then seated where they could see the bodies of their family.”
