In the context of Israel’s unlawful occupation and its imposition of a system of apartheid against all Palestinians, and against the backdrop of its ongoing genocide in Gaza, Israeli authorities have been recently accelerating its violations of international human rights and humanitarian law in pursuing its policy of ethnic cleansing in the occupied West Bank.

 

This policy has been implemented through the forcible displacement of Palestinians in refugee camps, Bedouin and herding communities in the West Bank, as well as the creation and expansion of settlements , acts that amount to the war crime of unlawful deportation and transfer.

 

Palestine’s Permanent Mission to the UN on June 12 sounded the alarm over the newest largest wave of forced displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

 

During a briefing held by the Palestine’s Permanent Mission to the UN in Geneva, Palestine's Permanent Representative, ambassador Ibrahim Khraishi, warned of the unprecedented deterioration of conditions in the occupied West Bank amid the upsurge of colonist attacks, colonial settlement expansion, and the ongoing military offensive on the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams, which has triggered the largest wave of forced displacement in the West Bank since 1967, alongside widespread destruction of infrastructure, homes and civilian facilities.

 

He stressed that the West Bank was witnessing a dangerous escalation at the political, economic and humanitarian levels due to Israel’s unbridled annexation and settler-colonialism policies, arrests, extrajudicial killings, colonist violence, and the continued withholding of Palestinian clearance revenues.

 

On his part, UNRWA representatives outlined the latest developments in the northern West Bank, pointing to escalating destruction and the forced displacement of more than 45,000 Palestinians, attacks on infrastructure and medical facilities, and Israeli measures aimed at demolishing the Agency’s premises in occupied Jerusalem.

 

Israeli authorities have been accelerating annexation through a state-driven campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities in Area C of the occupied West Bank, while committing the crime against humanity of forcible transfer.

 

The Israeli government has made formal annexation an explicit policy objective .

 

It has accelerated settlement expansion and land grabs, increased financial and logistical support to settlements, and has armed settlers, thereby enabling a brutal state-sanctioned campaign of settler violence and of forced displacement of Palestinians from Area C.

 

This area constitutes over 60 per cent of the occupied West Bank and has long been central to Israel’s efforts to control land and demographics, given its natural resources, vital grazing and agricultural land.

 

Communities in Area C have been facing growing risks of displacement and settlement expansion.

 

The Jordan Valley and South Hebron Hills have been areas under particular pressure where residents have faced repeated raids, demolitions and damage to infrastructure. Restrictions on access to land and essential services have also increased pressure on these communities and State -backed settler violence and home demolitions have forcibly displaced thousands of Palestinians in, emptying out over 100 villages entirely.

 

In the Gaza Strip , Israel’s ongoing military operations and evacuation orders despite the ceasefire have displaced roughly 90 per cent of the population (approximately 1.9 million people), with much of the civilian infrastructure destroyed to create long-term buffer zones.

 

Families have been displaced from their neighborhoods many times – and the last time they were uprooted, they were homeless for more than six months.

 

Israel’s ‘voluntary emigration’ plan from Gaza is its latest attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the Strip .

 

Israel’s defense minister has advanced plans to remove Palestinians from the Gaza Strip through "voluntary emigration".

 

Israel Katz said late last May that the plans would take place "at the proper time and in the proper manner".

 

Israel's security cabinet approved a proposal by Katz in March to establish a directorate within his ministry to facilitate "migration" from the enclave.

 

Despite the Israeli genocide in Gaza, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wrought utter destruction on the coastal enclave, the vast majority of Palestinians there say they will never abandon their home.

 

Proposals for the removal of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have been repeatedly raised during the course of the Israeli genocide.

 

Though some ministers have framed the move to remove Palestinians as a voluntary option, other Israeli officials have been explicitly calling for forced expulsion, which is a war crime.

 

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring , deporting or displacing occupied people from an occupied territory while the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court names deportation by “expulsion or other coercive acts” a crime against humanity.

 

Ninety-two per cent of Gaza’s homes have been destroyed or damaged. None of its 37 hospitals is fully functional. Aid trucks cut from 4,200 a week to 590 when Israel sealed the crossings in February, families burning trash to cook whatever arrives, children frozen to death last winter for lack of shelter materials Israel would not allow in.

 

The Yellow Line, the boundary of Israeli control drawn by the ceasefire, keeps moving west, swallowing water points and clinics, with Palestinians killed for approaching a line that approaches them. More than 986 Palestinians have been killed since the “ceasefire” was signed in October 2025.

 

Amid the expanding Israeli military incursions record levels of settler violence, and impending annexations , the overwhelming majority of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza are fiercely resisting displacement , viewing it as a permanent severing from their homeland .

 

The writer Palestinian author, researcher and freelance journalist