Israel’s illegal settlements destroy Palestinian homes, lives and rights

Israel invaded the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in 1967 and has illegally occupied1  this Palestinian land ever since, forcing 300,000 Palestinians from their homes – including 40,000 since January 2025 – and transferring in 700,000 Jewish settlers2, whether from Israel or elsewhere. Israel’s illegal settlements, including the Israel-controlled land around them, cover 60% of the West Bank3. This is settler-colonialism.

Meanwhile, inside Israel and across the entire occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), Israel subjects Palestinians to apartheid4 – systematic racial discrimination, segregation and domination – privileging Jewish Israelis and discriminating against Palestinians. Apartheid is a crime against humanity. 

Israel’s racist and expansionist settler-colonial enterprise is not only illegal, but causes devastating harm5, systematically violating the rights of the Palestinian people. 

Violent displacement

On 20 October 2023, five settlers, armed and wearing Israeli military uniform, arrived at the Palestinian family home of Amar Mustafa in the South Hebron Hills, in the West Bank. They assaulted Amar – hitting him with a rifle – and told him his family had to leave that day. That evening, three military jeeps drove up and the soldiers threatened to shoot the family if they didn’t leave. The family left that evening.  

Settlers violently attack West Bank Palestinians at least seven times per day6 – at times armed gangs of hundreds or more settlers rampage through Palestinian villages – supported by the Israeli military. A West Bank Palestinian child is killed every two days7 by a settler or Israeli soldier. 

Israel’s violence in the West Bank has ramped up further since January 2025, forcing more than 40,000 Palestinian refugees from their homes, killing dozens, arresting hundreds and destroying essential infrastructure. 

Since Israel began its genocide of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip in October 2023, settlers have forced out at least 20 Palestinian communities8 from their West Bank lands.  

Israel is expanding its settler-colonial project – to ultimately colonise all Palestinian land by forcibly displacing Palestinians and transferring its population into the oPt, Israel is committing war crimes under international law.  

Separation and division

Israel has imposed hundreds of checkpoints across the West Bank9. These barriers severely restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement, and fragment the West Bank10 into dozens of isolated areas, including by severing Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem11 from the rest of the West Bank. 

Barriers are a physical manifestation of Israel’s apartheid policies12. Palestinians are humiliated at checkpoints, delayed and prevented from seeing loved ones, getting to work, school, hospital, or from tending to and harvesting their crops – while Israeli settlers pass through on separate roads unimpeded.   

Theft and destruction of natural resources

“[Israel has] appropriated the vast majority of Palestinians’ natural resources in the oPt for the economic benefit of Jewish citizens in Israel and in the illegal settlements.” – Amnesty International13 

Israel’s apartheid policies extend to Palestinians’ natural resources; Israel extracts millions of gallons of water14 from the oPt – depriving Palestinians of it. Israel extracts Palestinian minerals15 and stone16, including to construct its illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. 

Settlers have uprooted over 800,000 olive trees17 belonging to Palestinians, and burnt swathes of Palestinian agricultural land, while 19 million cubic metres of settlement-produced wastewater18 – enough to fill over 7,600 Olympic-size swimming pools – pollutes rivers and wildlife in Palestinian communities each year. 

Palestinians are denied many billions of dollars of revenue yearly19 through Israel’s theft of their natural resources. 

Impact on Palestinian children

Israel’s apartheid restrictions on Palestinians’ movement, and settler attacks on Palestinian children20, have decimated Palestinian children’s education21. Palestinian schools are open on average two days a week, with many students unable to attend altogether. 

Hundreds of Palestinian children are detained each year by Israel – more than 12,000 in total since 2000. Most arrests in the West Bank occur within a few kilometres of a settlement or a settler-only road – ‘friction points’22 for arrests – as Israel purposely has a greater military presence and carries out more raids in these areas to ‘protect’ Israeli settlers. The most cited reasons for Israel’s arrests of Palestinian children are for alleged stone-throwing – which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years  – or gathering in groups of 10 or more. 

42% of Palestinian children are injured at the point of arrest, 86% are beaten in Israeli detention and 69% are strip-searched. Palestinian children are subjected to sexual assault and threats of rape23. Systematically unfair trials find Palestinian children guilty in over 99% of cases22. 

Tackling UK government complicity

The International Court of Justice stated in July 2024 that Israel’s settlements are illegal, and settlers must be removed as rapidly as possible – and called on the UK and other countries to ensure this happens.

Although the UK government says that Israel’s settlements are illegal, UK policies support and promote them. The UK allows trade with Israel’s illegal settlements and investment in companies involved with them – £74 billion flowed from the UK to businesses involved in Israel’s settlements between 2021-24. 

The UK allows its citizens to travel freely to Israel’s illegal settlements24, live in them, and fight with the Israel military in the oPt. The UK has done nothing to hold Israel to account for its government infrastructure and ministers who promote, sustain and expand illegal Israeli settlements. 

As a matter of urgency, the UK government must: publicly state that Israel’s settlements are illegal and must be dismantled; suspend its existing trade deal with Israel, and end current negotiations over a new agreement; and prohibit UK trade with and investment in  settlement businesses, as well as any parts of Israel’s economy that support its illegal occupation. The UK government will not fulfil these obligations unless we push it to do so.