Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Bedouin and herding communities

Palestinians watch as Israeli security forces stand guard while excavators demolish a Palestinian house in the village of Al-Dirat in Masafer Yatta, in the occupied West Bank on 4 May 2026. (HAZEM BADER / AFP)

“What is happening right now is [the] erasure of humans, trees and stones, and anything that is Palestinian, by settlers under the support of the military. ” – Muntasir al-Maliki, a resident of Kufr Malik

Reposted from Amnesty International, June 10, 2026

Palestinian Bedouins lived for generations in the occupied West Bank village of Khirbet Zanuta (Zanuta), sustaining themselves through herding, farming and dairy production. The village was designated as part of Area C under the 1995 Oslo II Accords, placing it under full Israeli military and administrative control. Today, Zanuta is being eaten away by Israeli outposts and settlements and destroyed by state-sponsored violence and terror.

Just 1km from Zanuta, Israeli settlers established an illegal outpost known as Meitarim Farm in 2021. The settlers soon began a sustained campaign of violent attacks and threats against Zanuta’s residents. They set fire to the villagers’ tents and classrooms, broke into their homes, beat them with rifles, threw stones at them, smashed their solar panels and windows, emptied their water tanks and pumped sewage onto their farmland.

Ruins in Zanuta following the village’s destruction by settlers. Meitarim Farm is pictured in the background, on the overlooking hill. 1 September 2025.

The story of Zanuta reflects the fate of dozens of Palestinian Bedouin and herding communities already displaced or at imminent risk of displacement in Area C. This report lays bare the scale and severity of the ethnic cleansing campaign targeting these communities, carried out in a context of apartheid and unlawful occupation and against the backdrop of an ongoing genocide in the occupied Gaza Strip.

The report also demonstrates – contrary to what too many in the international community suggest – that the campaign is not the product of “rogue” settlers, settlers’ organizations or “extremist” government ministers. In other words, settler violence is not an aberration but an integral part of an organized state policy.

The escalating violence in Zanuta followed decades of systematic discrimination by the Israeli authorities, including constant threats of home demolitions to force them to leave, a common practice adopted by Israel to enforce its system of apartheid. Zanuta’s residents repeatedly reported settler attacks to the Israeli police, seeking protection, but no action was ever taken.

When the settlers from Meitarim Farm again raided the village on 21 October 2023, this time accompanied by Israeli forces, and threatened to harm residents if they did not leave, the community knew they had no choice but to flee.

In a rare move, in July 2024 and February 2025, Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the police and military to facilitate the community’s return and protect residents from attacks. The Israeli police and military ignored both rulings. Every attempt by residents to return was met with continued settler violence and the acquiescence of Israeli forces. Digital evidence, interviews and satellite imagery from 30 March 2025 confirm the outcome: Zanuta no longer exists – it has been forcibly depopulated and extensively destroyed.

Meanwhile, the settlers received state backing to intensify their violent campaign. In April 2025, two Israeli ministers – Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock – held an event at Meitarim Farm where they distributed 19 state-funded all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), cameras and night-vision equipment to settlers living in outposts in the Hebron area.

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich explained why:

“The heroic and pioneering settlers who live here are doing Zionism, and they need security… We are here to build with them and to settle the land...” while praising settler land seizures and emphasizing the role of ATVs in taking over Palestinian grazing land.

The report demonstrates that the ethnic cleansing campaign in Area C is state-sanctioned, state-driven and state-implemented; it seeks to accelerate the Israeli government’s annexation agenda and settlement expansion through war crimes and crimes against humanity. As such, the report’s conclusions demand that the international community fully confront and name the Israeli state-driven project, and act decisively to prevent the destruction of Palestinian communities and the annexation of the West Bank.

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