The international community's failure to take punitive action against Israel for its pervasive breaches of international law in the occupied West Bank has contributed to making the annexation of Palestinian territory an "irreversible" reality, Amnesty International said.
In a statement released on Thursday, the human rights group stated that impunity granted to Israel by global powers has further emboldened Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government to "turbocharge" efforts to dispossess Palestinians across the West Bank.
"The unconditional support of the U.S. government, combined with the pervasive lack of international accountability for Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, decades of crimes under international law linked to its unlawful occupation and its system of apartheid, has further emboldened Israel to escalate its illegal actions," said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International's senior director for research, advocacy, policy and campaigns.
The formalization of land grabs, expansion of illegal settlements, and state-backed settler violence in the territory "are a direct indictment of the international community's catastrophic failure to take decisive action," Guevara-Rosas added.
The West Bank has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 war. Since then, the contiguity of Palestinian territory has been increasingly fragmented by the construction of hundreds of Israeli housing units, entrenching the occupation. These settlements are illegal under international law.
Following Israel's genocidal war that began after the Hamas-led attack in October 2023, the number of settlements has sharply expanded, and hundreds of makeshift outposts have multiplied. The population of Jewish Israelis in these areas has now soared past half a million.
Simultaneously, Israeli army raids, attacks, house demolitions, and arrests in the occupied territory are at unprecedented levels, while settlers attack and kill Palestinians and rampage through their property with impunity, backed by the military and the state.
At least 1,094 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers in the West Bank since October 2023, according to the latest United Nations figures.
Amnesty International outlined a list of actions taken by the Israeli government since December, which occurred despite the International Court of Justice's 2024 ruling that "the Israeli occupation is illegal and should end its unlawful presence... as rapidly as possible... including removing settlements and forcing settlers out."
"Yet instead of complying, Israel has simply invented new ways to violate international law, further entrenching its unlawful occupation and apartheid—while the international community continues, at best, to pay lip service to Palestinians' rights and taken no effective action," Guevara-Rosas said.
Source: www.aljazeera.com