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‘Israel is systemically eliminating Palestinian collective life’:  Israeli human rights report

‘The Elimination Report’ by leading Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem draws on 2,000 testimonies to detail Israel’s systemic destruction of Palestinian life in the West Bank
Deborah Stone
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Btselem

Cover image from ‘The Elimation Report’ by B’Tselem

Published: 14 September 2026

Last updated: 15 September 2026

The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem has released a damning indictment of the Israeli assault on Palestinian life, charging the Israeli government with “carrying out an elimination project in the West Bank”.

The Elimination Report calls on the international community to “use all means at their disposal under international law to prevent Israel from continuing its crimes, bring them to an end, and protect Palestinians from them”.

The report comes as 12 countries, led by the UK, introduce new sanctions against settlements and as Israel's election campaign heats up.

The key claim in the report is that Palestinians are not suffering from individual incidents of violence but from a systematic assault intended to destroy their way of life.

“Israel's actions in the West Bank are not simply a series of separate violations of individual and collective rights. Rather, they are part of a comprehensive mechanism of elimination.

“In this context, ‘elimination’ means sustained harm to the material, social and political conditions that enable Palestinian collective existence – land, institutions, language, culture, social ties, leadership, shared memory and history – as well as to the possibility of imagining and sustaining a shared future. Israel's project of elimination in the West Bank is reshaping the territory and the conditions of life within it so that Israeli control and Israeli presence become continuous, entrenched, and permanent, while Palestinian existence becomes fragmented, vulnerable, and dependent,” the report declares.

The Elimination Report is based on approximately 2,000 testimonies from Palestinians in the West Bank, additional field research and decades of documentation. It is produced by B'Tselem, The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. 

The normalisation of the mass killing and colossal destruction Israel is inflicting on the Gaza Strip has dramatically expanded the boundaries of violence perceived as legitimate

The report details the escalation of attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank since the formation of the current government in late 2022, intensifying further after October 2023.

It identifies five main domains of attack: violence and intimidation, movement restrictions, economic strangulation, social and political destruction, and ethnic cleansing and territorial takeover, noting that they operate in concert to weaken Palestinian livelihoods, social ties and physical security.

“The reality described here leads to a clear moral and political conclusion: the systematic and violent oppression Israel inflicts on Palestinians in the West Bank cannot be ended through more effective enforcement against particularly violent settlers, the removal of certain checkpoints, a partial construction freeze, or piecemeal policy changes. Such steps may prevent some crimes and rights violations and protect people in specific cases and are therefore important in the immediate term.

“But they do not alter the structure that produces violence, dispossession and oppression. The practices described in this report are not aberrations but integral to how the regime operates … A regime based on Jewish supremacy, apartheid and dispossession is illegitimate. It cannot be accepted or normalised, nor is it enough merely to reduce some of the violence and dispossession it produces.”

Australian colonialism used as a model

The report positions Israel as a settler-colonialist entity in the West Bank, drawing on the work of Australian historian Patrick Wolfe, and arguing that Israel is engaged in a project to eliminate “Indigenous presence”.

“The Zionist-Israeli project demonstrates the key features of settler colonialism: establishing Jewish-Israeli sovereignty in a space inhabited by an Indigenous Palestinian population, while undermining Palestinian existence through marginalisation, expulsion, dispossession and fragmentation.

“Defining the Zionist-Israeli project as settler colonialism does not deny Jewish historical, religious and cultural connections to the space, the continuous presence of a Jewish community in it, or the long history of persecution, displacement and violence against Jews. The question it poses regarding the Zionist-Israeli project is not whether a Jewish connection to the space exists, but concerns the ways in which the Zionist project sought to establish exclusive Jewish-Israeli sovereignty in a space where Palestinians lived and continue to live. “

Jewish supremacy as ‘apartheid’

B'Tselem describes the regime structure that organises and preserves Jewish supremacy and control over Palestinians as apartheid, noting that an Israeli regime grants rights, protections, resources and political power differently to Israeli-Jews and Palestinians.

“Israeli settlers are subject to Israeli civil law and enjoy full political rights, state services and state protection, while Palestinians living in the same space are subject to military rule and military law and cannot participate in determining the policies and laws that govern almost every aspect of their lives.”

At any moment, soldiers may break into a home; armed settlers may arrive at a grazing area

It found that land and resources are being transferred out of Palestinian control to settlements and outposts with the aim of establishing a contiguous, permanent Israeli presence.

It notes that the “Decisive Plan”, published by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich in 2017, while not formally adopted by the government, has become a key influence on policy. The plan gives Palestinians three options: live under Jewish supremacy while relinquishing their political claims, leave, or face violent suppression if they resist.

The influence of Gaza

The report describes the killing of Palestinians in Gaza as “genocide” and says the Gaza War changed how Israelis were prepared to act towards Palestinians in the West Bank.

“The current escalation in the West Bank is unfolding in parallel with the genocide Israel is committing against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip ... The two arenas are not detached. The normalisation of the mass killing and colossal destruction Israel is inflicting on the Gaza Strip has dramatically expanded the boundaries of violence perceived as legitimate.”

How The Elimination Project works

Violence and intimidation include attacks on people and property carried out not only by settler militia but also by police, military and security officials, sometimes through arrests and incarcerations. The most dramatic result is the deaths of 1,087 Palestinians at the hands of Israelis between October 7, 2023 and June 30, 2026.

The report says the impact is much greater than the number of direct victims. “[Violence] intimidates the entire population. It narrows the range of action available to Palestinians as individuals, families and communities. At any moment, soldiers may break into a home; armed settlers may arrive at a grazing area; a checkpoint may close without explanation; or a person may be arrested, beaten or killed. In such conditions, every routine activity requires a calculation of risk.”

Movement restrictions create uncertainty, isolation, lack of access to services and livelihoods, and dependence on the Israeli military for access to permits or through checkpoints and roadblocks. According to B’Tselem data, between October 2023 and June 2026, Israel established more than 200 new checkpoints and blocked dozens of Palestinian communities’ access to main roads and to roads between Palestinian communities.

Economic strangulation includes Israeli control of Palestinian tax revenue, infrastructure and capacity to work. It leads to poverty, lost services, dependence on Israel, and the breakdown of community life.

Social and political destruction targets Palestinian political activity, media, student groups and civil society organisations. The report said Israel has intensified its attack on these groups since October 2023, arresting elected officials, activists, academics, students and journalists; raiding NGO offices; restricting demonstrations and non-violent protests; and expanding surveillance.

Ethnic cleansing and territorial takeover refer to the way Israel takes over space through legal, planning and administrative mechanisms including the declarations of “state lands,” “closed military zones,” “firing zones,” nature reserves and archaeological sites; planning and building restrictions; the demolition of homes and infrastructure; establishment of settlements; and construction of roads and infrastructure connecting settlements to Israel. “Ostensibly, these are different tools justified on different grounds, but together they shrink Palestinian living space and expand the space available to Jewish-Israelis.”

READ MORE

The Elimination Project (B’Tselem)
Summary Report
Full Report

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About the author

Deborah Stone

Deborah Stone

Deborah Stone is Editor-in-Chief of TJI. She has more than 30 years experience as a journalist and editor, including as a reporter and feature writer on The Age and The Sunday Age, as Editor of the Australian Jewish News and as Editor of ArtsHub.

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Comments2

  • Avatar of Mark Ian

    Mark Ian27 September at 11:13 pm

    The history of Humanitarian Law goes Decades back to the May 1939 British White Paper severely limiting Jewish Escape from Nazi Occupied and to be Occupied Europe .
    Declared under blackmail from Jihadi Pressure to align with Nazi Germany Millions of Jewish People could have Rescued in the League of Nations British Mandated Palestine or Islamic majority Lands such as Turkey which announced it would refuse to give refuge to large numbers of Jewish People .
    Yet in the Syrian Civil War in 2011-2014 millions of Refugees were taken in to Turkey .
    The Rejection of the November 29 1947 Partition Plan further re-iterated Islamic rejection of Jewish Security and Communal Rights .
    The desire to destroy the Jewish State has continued to 2026 .
    This does not Justify Israeli Fanatics persecuting Palestinians but the Ceasefire has to be enacted for Peace to follow .

  • Avatar of Mark Leibler

    Mark Leibler17 September at 10:53 am

    Sorry, did I miss that part of the report which references terror attacks on Israelis emanating from the West Bank, the Palestinian Authority’s ‘Pay for Slay’ policy and the right of Israel’s government to protect its citizens against terrorist attacks? Is it seriously suggested that Israel’s actions – even if some criticism is justified – can be characterised as ‘ethnic cleansing’ ? Or that one should accept at face value allegations by an organisation which levels the blood libel of ‘genocide’ against Israel?