Israeli NGO B'Tselem Accuses Government of Systematic Plan to Dismantle Palestinian Life in West Bank

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem has published a comprehensive report titled the Elimination Project, which warns that Israel is executing a systematic campaign to dismantle the conditions necessary for Palestinian collective life in the occupied West Bank. The report, based on approximately 2,000 testimonies, argues that the Israeli government seeks to establish permanent Jewish Israeli sovereignty by making Palestinian existence fragmented, vulnerable, and dependent. According to the NGO, this project is carried out through five interconnected mechanisms: violence and intimidation, restrictions on movement, economic strangulation, social and political destruction, and ethnic cleansing and territorial appropriation.

B'Tselem states that while these policies have long roots, they have accelerated since the formation of Benjamin Netanyahu's government in late 2022 and intensified following the Hamas led attacks on October 7, 2023. The report specifically highlights the Decisive Plan, a 2017 document by current Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, as a key ideological framework. This plan reportedly offers Palestinians three options: live under Jewish supremacy while renouncing political claims, leave the territory, or face violent repression if they resist.

Data cited in the reports include the killing of at least 1,107 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 2023 and the forced displacement of dozens of communities. The NGO also notes that unemployment in the West Bank rose from 13.1 percent in 2022 to over 31 percent in 2024. B'Tselem concludes that these actions constitute a regime of apartheid and a crime against humanity, calling on the international community to end its complicity and stop the military rule in the territory.