A report by the U.N. high commissioner for human rights says Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank amount to “an institutionalized regime of systematic discrimination, oppression and violence by Israel against Palestinians.”
It says these actions violated an international convention “which prohibits racial segregation and apartheid.”
The report, submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council, says Israel’s “accelerated unlawful settlement expansion and annexation” along with military operations in the northern West Bank camps displaced Palestinians “on a scale previously unseen,” with more than 36,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced.
The report says the displacement “appears to indicate a concerted Israeli policy of mass forcible transfer throughout the occupied territory, aimed at permanent displacement, raising concerns of ethnic cleansing.”
Mourners carry the bodies of four members of the Odeh family, who were killed in their car by Israeli security forces, in Tammun in the West Bank on Sunday. Majdi Mohammed / AP
Israel has previously rejected findings from the human rights body, and its U.N. mission this week again accused the office of being “the epicenter of vile anti-Israel activism” and part of a “U.N. anti-Israel narrative machine.”
According to the report, “pervasive impunity” has facilitated and driven violence against and harassment of Palestinians. It recorded 1,732 incidents of settler violence causing casualties or property damage across the reporting period, from Nov. 1, 2024, through Oct. 31, 2025, up from 1,400 in the prior reporting period. The report notes that an additional 1,452 incidents were recorded involving harassment, intimidation, trespassing or property takeover that did not result in casualties or damage.
The report cites the Higher Planning Council of the Israeli Civil Administration’s plans to build 3,401 housing units in the E1 settlement block east of Jerusalem, an area widely seen as strategically important because of its effect on territorial continuity in the West Bank.
In the announcement of the approval of E1, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also holds a post in the Defense Ministry, said that the plan was “a significant step that practically erases the two-state delusion and consolidates the Jewish people’s hold on the heart of the Land of Israel” and “finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state.”
According to the report, the plan could displace thousands of Palestinians from 18 Bedouin communities in the area. The report says such displacement of protected persons would amount to forcible transfer, which it says could constitute a war crime and, under some circumstances, a crime against humanity.
High commissioner Volker Türk recommended that Israel evacuate all settlers; end forced evictions, demolitions, and land reallocation to settlements; respect Palestinian self-determination; and provide reparations for wrongful acts. The findings are not binding.