The ex-Israeli premier criticized his nation’s policies and actions in the West Bank just as the Israeli administration revealed sweeping plans to extend control over additional Palestinian lands.
Former Prime Minister Olmert conveyed to Euronews that Israel bears responsibility for the persistent violence in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have forcibly displaced Palestinians from their residences.
“The only ones accountable are the Israelis residing in the West Bank along with the government backing them, as they are the perpetrators of brutal hostilities against uninvolved Palestinians,” Olmert stated on the Europe Today program from his home in Tel Aviv.
“This situation closely resembles an attempt at ethnic cleansing,” he added. “I raise my voice loudly wherever possible to denounce this, since such actions are intolerable and unacceptable to those who uphold different standards of humanity and empathy.”
Hostile acts by settlers targeting Palestinians have heightened following Hamas’ large-scale assault on Israelis from Gaza on 7 October 2023.
In 2025, 240 Palestinians, including 55 minors, lost their lives in the West Bank. Data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicates that 225 were killed by Israeli forces, nine by Israeli settlers, and six deaths remain uncertain regarding the assailants’ identities.
OCHA’s Humanitarian Update on the West Bank also reports that in 2025, Israeli settler assaults caused injuries to over 830 Palestinians, averaging two victims daily.
Additionally, Israeli officials forcibly evicted two Palestinian families from their homes in Batn al-Hawa, a neighbourhood in Silwan village in East Jerusalem, handing over the properties to an Israeli settler organization.
Concurrently, the Israeli security cabinet revealed new policies that would “dramatically” alter land registration and ownership procedures in the West Bank, aiming to facilitate settlement expansion within the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Defence Minister Israel Katz and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced on Sunday that these measures “aim to eliminate long-standing obstacles, repeal discriminatory Jordanian laws, and hasten settlement development on the ground.”
“We will persist in ending the notion of a Palestinian state,” declared Smotrich.