While Israeli genocide in Gaza gets more attention, Israel is continuing its ethnic cleansing operations in the West Bank. Al Jazeera reported this morning that Israeli forces have killed 952 Palestinians on the West Bank since Oct. 7, 2023, including 192 children. Out of the total, 117 have been killed since the beginning of 2025. More than 8,115 Palestinians have been wounded. At least 15,500 Palestinians have been arrested. As of April, Israel has imprisoned 9,792 Palestinians, 3,498 of whom have been detained without charge.
An Israeli human rights group called Yesh Din, in collaboration with Physicians For Human Rights, has produced a report entitled “Displaced Communities, Forgotten People: Israel’s Forcible Transfer of Palestinians in the West Bank” which addresses the events leading to the forced displacement of hundreds of Palestinian families from their homes in seven villages in a limited area of the West Bank.
“This was not a voluntary departure, but a forcible transfer effected by a combination of factors: years of institutional oppression, daily physical violence, invasive psychological terror, and catastrophic economic harm,” the report says. “All of these led to a loss of personal security, an ongoing erosion of community resilience, and a breakdown of the social cohesion of seven shepherding communities, which were forced out of the lands that were their home.”
The main conclusion of the report “is that Israel is responsible for the commission of the war crime of forcible transfer of Palestinians in the West Bank,” it says. “This crime is committed with the state’s support, by its agents or citizens. Moreover, the state’s deep involvement in the commission of these crimes, its practices, their systemic nature and their replication in various locations, lead to the grim conclusion that, in certain parts of the West Bank, the State of Israel is implementing practices of ethnic cleansing.”
