Israel is strangling the Palestinian economy in the West Bank, driving it toward collapse. In doing so, it is undermining the conditions Palestinian society needs to survive and build its future. This economic strangulation is one of the key mechanisms of the Elimination Project. For decades, Israel has worked to make the Palestinian economy in the West Bank dependent on it for jobs, tax revenues, movement and trade, land, water and infrastructure. Over the past three years, Israel has used that reliance to ramp up economic pressure as part of accelerating the Elimination Project. Some 140,000 Palestinians have lost their jobs in Israel after their work permits were revoked. Income from work in Israel has dropped by around 88%. Israel is also withholding billions of shekels in Palestinian tax revenues. Checkpoints are costing Palestinians more than NIS 62 million a month in lost working hours. Farmers are being driven off their land and cut off from water sources. But this isn't just about poverty and unemployment. Families are losing their livelihoods. Farmers can't reach their land. Businesses are struggling to operate. Public services like healthcare and education are also struggling to meet people's needs. Together, these measures are eroding the ability of an entire society to live independently, remain on its land and build a future there as a people. Read more about how Israel is destroying the conditions that allow Palestinians to exist as a collective in the West Bank in our report, The Elimination Project >> btselem.org/the_elimination_…

The elimination project is implemented not only through killing, violence, and the expulsion of shepherding communities. It also works through the gradual erosion of the conditions needed to sustain Palestinian life. Sometimes, closing a single gate is enough to disrupt daily life, cut a community off from its surroundings and land, and make continued life there increasingly difficult. For decades, Israel has developed an extensive system of movement restrictions that allows it to control Palestinian movement and bring daily life to a halt at a moment’s notice. The system includes checkpoints, gates at the entrances to villages, roads from which Palestinians are barred, and a permit regime that determines where Palestinians can travel. Since October 2023, Israel has intensified its use of this infrastructure, imposing increasingly severe movement restrictions. As of the end of 2025, 925 movement obstacles have been documented in the West Bank. More than 200 checkpoints and roadblocks have been added over the past three years, and at least half of the movement obstacles block or delay travel between Palestinian cities and villages and major roads. A gate that is closed without prior notice can prevent a worker from reaching their workplace, a child from getting to school, a patient from reaching a hospital, and a farmer from reaching their land. A journey of a few minutes can turn into hours, and no one knows whether a road that was open in the morning will still be open on the way back. Thus, Israel controls not only space, but also time and the ability to maintain a normal routine. It separates communities, cuts people off from their land and sources of livelihood, and turns uncertainty into a permanent condition. Movement restrictions are a central mechanism of the Elimination Project. They fragment Palestinian space into isolated enclaves, while enabling continuous movement and presence for Jews. In this way, they undermine Palestinians’ ability to exist as an independent collective and reinforce Jewish supremacy in the West Bank. Read more in our new report, The Elimination Project >> btselem.org/the_elimination_…

To understand what is happening in the West Bank today, listen to what Bezalel Smotrich said back in 2017 he intended to do. In the “Decisive Plan” he wrote, Smotrich openly articulated the logic of elimination in the West Bank: establishing permanent and irreversible Jewish control and sovereignty while dismantling Palestinian collective existence. One of the plan’s central tools is “victory through settlement”: expanding settlements and taking over land in order to make Jewish sovereignty an irreversible fact and prevent the possibility of a contiguous, independent Palestinian existence. The plan leaves Palestinians with three options: relinquish their national aspirations and live under Jewish supremacy, leave, or be defeated by force if they resist. Smotrich did not invent this project, and the current government did not start it. The plan was also never formally adopted as government policy. But today, Smotrich holds extensive powers over the West Bank, and central elements of this vision are being translated into policy, budgets and action on the ground. Land takeovers, expanding settlements and outposts, expelling communities and deepening Israeli control are not separate events. They are part of the same political project. This is the Elimination Project. Read more in our new report. >> btselem.org/the_elimination_…