Israel pursuing 'elimination project' against Palestinians in West Bank: B'Tselem

Israel is pursuing an "elimination project" aimed at dismantling Palestinian life in the occupied West Bank, as military violence, settler attacks, movement restrictions and land seizures intensify, an Israeli human rights group warned on Monday.

Israel's policies had dramatically escalated since the current government took office at the end of 2022, with the assault on Palestinians intensifying further following the outbreak of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, B'Tselem said in a report entitled "The Elimination Project: Israel's Systematic Dismantling of Palestinian Collective Life in the West Bank".

The report draws on more than 2,000 testimonies collected from Palestinians since October 2023, alongside more than three decades of documentation of Israeli abuses in the occupied territory.

It said the dismantling of Palestinian life was being carried out increasingly openly and violently through cooperation between Israeli state authorities and armed settler groups operating with state backing.

B'Tselem identified the five key areas driving removal of Palestinians from the West Bank as violence and intimidation, restrictions on movement, economic strangulation, social and political destruction, and ethnic cleansing and territorial takeover.

The group said the measures were making it increasingly difficult for Palestinians to maintain basic daily life while undermining the conditions needed for Palestinian society to exist as a political, social and territorial community.

Since 7 October 2023, Israeli forces have established 200 new checkpoints across the West Bank, according to the report.

It said around 18% of West Bank land had been seized through the establishment of settlements and settlement outposts, while 64 Palestinian shepherding communities had been depopulated following sustained settler and military harassment.

B'Tselem also said 1,087 Palestinians had been killed in the West Bank since 7 October 2023, including 242 children and 21 women.

The report said Israel's campaign was not limited to attacks on Palestinians, but was also aimed at deepening Israeli control over the occupied territory and creating a continuous Israeli presence.

"This is not only a matter of physical territory," it said, arguing that Israeli authorities were also seeking to impose exclusive control over historical, religious and identity-based narratives associated with the land.

It said Israeli forces protected organised settler attacks while violently suppressing Palestinian protests, while settlement farms and outposts were being used to take control of large areas of land.

"Israeli flags fill the West Bank, while Palestinian flags are repeatedly removed from public spaces," the report said.

Palestinian farmers have also been denied access to their land, while entire communities have been uprooted, it added.

B'Tselem said various branches of the Israeli state, including the military and Civil Administration, were working alongside settler movements to create conditions in which Palestinians live under constant threat of military and settler violence.

It singled out far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has broad powers over civilian affairs in the West Bank, as a key figure in the process.

The report linked current Israeli policies to Smotrich's "Decisive Plan", published in 2017 before he became a minister.

The plan sets out three options for Palestinians, according to B'Tselem: accepting Jewish-Israeli supremacy while abandoning their national aspirations, leaving, or facing violent repression if they resist.

The group said elements of the plan had increasingly moved from ideology into government policy through state budgets, expanded governmental powers and measures implemented on the ground.

Smotrich said in September 2025 that he would use every means possible "to prevent the danger of a Palestinian state, including bringing about the collapse of the Palestinian Authority … through economic strangulation".

Speaking at a press conference on Monday, B'Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak called on states and international institutions to intervene.

"States and international institutions must use every means available to stop Israeli crimes, protect Palestinians, and stop the elimination project," she said.

Kareem Jubran, who heads B'Tselem's field research on the West Bank, said the findings showed that violence, displacement and restrictions were part of a wider policy rather than isolated incidents.

"What we uncovered is that these are not separate incidents. All the disparate elements have one character, one goal. When you look at the picture from above, it leads to one conclusion: that the main goal is to eliminate Palestinians as a collective," he said.

Novak described Smotrich's 2017 plan as a "blueprint" for the process.

"It shows the ideological and the operational way to get to what we are calling an elimination," she said. "And he calls it victory by settlement. To win in a very final way so that nothing [such as a Palestinian state] can happen afterwards."

The report comes as Israel continues to expand settlement activity in the occupied West Bank despite international opposition and growing warnings over the viability of a future Palestinian state.

An Israeli court in Jerusalem last week rejected a bid by rights groups to halt tenders for a settlement project in E1, east of Jerusalem, which would further undermine territorial contiguity between Palestinian communities in the West Bank.

Israel's construction and housing ministry opened a tender in July for more than 1,200 housing units in the area.

The E1 project, approved by Israel last year after decades of delays partly due to pressure from successive US administrations, would further isolate occupied East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.