Israel annexing West Bank at 'unprecedented' rate amid international complicity: Amnesty

Amnesty International on Thursday blasted Israel for its “unprecedented” construction of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, saying it was deliberately trying to dispossess Palestinians and make annexation “an irreversible reality”.

Amnesty said that Israel was expanding its illegal settlements at an unprecedented scale and speed, pointing out that it had recently authorised a record number of settlements while expanding existing ones and passing a law allowing the registration of West Bank land as Israeli state property.

It said that the far-right Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “turbocharged” policies pursued by the previous government aimed at growing settlements and deepening occupation and apartheid.

"What we are witnessing is a state, led by a Prime Minister wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, openly gloating about its defiance of international law,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns.

“Despite hundreds of UN resolutions, Advisory Opinions from the International Court of Justice and global condemnation, Israel continues to brazenly expand illegal settlements, entrenching its cruel system of apartheid and destroying Palestinian lives and livelihoods," she added.

US and EU complicity

Guevara-Rosas also lambasted the US government and the EU for supporting Israel as it continued to displace Palestinians, expand settlements, and make moves to annex the West Bank.

"The unconditional support of the USA government, combined with the pervasive lack of international accountability for Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, decades of crimes under international law linked to its unlawful occupation and its system of apartheid, has further emboldened Israel to escalate its illegal actions,” she said.

“This includes formalising land grabs with full confidence that it will face no consequences.”

She pointed out that the EU had not taken any action against Israel over its genocidal war on Gaza or its settlement activities.

“Third states have failed to respect their own legal obligations, refusing to use the tools at their disposal, such as suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, to deter Israel from pursuing its unlawful agenda,” Guevara-Rosas said.

“The accelerating expansion of unlawful settlements and the rise in state-backed settler violence and crimes across the occupied West Bank are a direct indictment of the international community’s catastrophic failure to take decisive action.”

Splitting the West Bank into two

Israel is planning to construct 3,401 illegal housing units in the E1 area in the occupied West Bank, near East Jerusalem. This is meant to link the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Adumim in the West Bank to Jerusalem and split the occupied West Bank into two, permanently separating the Palestinian city of Ramallah from Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the south.

Israel’s extremist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has previously boasted that this would make any future Palestinian state impossible.

The construction of these housing units, accompanied by a road which only Israelis can access, will also lead to the displacement of Palestinians from the area.

In December 2025, the Israeli government also approved the construction of 19 new illegal settlements, bringing the total number approved in the past three years to 68.

Around 750,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegally.

A living hell for Palestinians

Some of the approved settlements include outposts already constructed by settlers in violation of Israel’s own laws. These were built on land stolen from Palestinian communities but will now be retroactively “legalised”.

Amnesty said that Israeli settlers in outposts in Area C, which is under full Israeli control and covers over 60% of the West Bank, had made the lives of Palestinian farmers and shepherds a “living hell”.

Protected by the Israeli military, they have stopped Palestinians from accessing grazing land and deprived them of their main livelihood, while taking over land, stealing livestock, and vandalising property, as well as physically attacking Palestinians.

21 Palestinian communities have been partially or fully uprooted and displaced in 2025 by settler violence, according to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Guevara-Rosas accused Israel of passing new laws allowing land registration in the West Bank in order to take over yet more Palestinian land.

"Land registration is yet another Israeli euphemism for land grabs and dispossession. Make no mistake: full annexation is the goal, and Israel has already laid much of the groundwork for achieving it. Ministers in the current Israeli government no longer feel any need to conceal their intentions,” she said.