Property deeds no protection for Palestinians as settler violence spreads in West Bank
An Amnesty International report reveals that Israel is carrying out a systematic ethnic cleansing campaign against Palestinian communities in the West Bank, with settler violence spreading even to areas where Palestinians hold legal property rights.
According to an Amnesty International report, Israel is pursuing the annexation of large parts of the occupied West Bank through a deliberate, state-backed campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities. The report cites United Nations figures showing that at least 5,910 Palestinians were forcibly displaced from 117 communities between January 2023 and April 2026, with 45 communities completely depopulated. The Ramallah and el-Bireh governorate, where the village of Mleihat is located, accounted for the largest number of displaced people.
The Amnesty report focuses on Area C, which comprises about 60 percent of the West Bank and is under full Israeli control, where the state uses administrative tools such as demolition orders, 'firing zone' designations, and declaring unregistered land as state land. However, Mleihat's plot is in Area B, privately registered with an official deed, making it difficult for the army to legally demolish the home or evict the owner. As activists and locals explain, the state then resorts to illegal means — using settler gangs to force them out.
Recently, some of the most violent settler outposts have emerged in Areas B and A, where Palestinian land deeds and civil authority were once thought to offer protection. For example, a new outpost near Taybeh Junction, run by Ben Pazi, has been established on a small strip of state land. On June 1, the Israeli military declared a closed military zone around the outpost, but according to residents and activists, the order is only enforced against solidarity activists, not against the settlers. Nayef Khalaife, father of the last family on the north side of the road, stated: "When the army comes, it doesn't talk to the settlers. It comes, stands by him, and leaves. There's no law for the settlers. We are outside the law's protection."
Al Jazeera has contacted Israeli military and security authorities for comment but has not yet received a response.
