Rights group says Israel trying to 'eliminate' Palestinian nationhood

Israeli rights group B'Tselem said Monday that Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank form part of a greater project designed to eliminate Palestinians as a separate people.

In a new report entitled "The Elimination Project", the rights group alleged that five Israeli tactics in the West Bank were connected -- "violence, ethnic cleansing, movement restrictions, economic strangulation, social and political destruction".

Together, the policies "dismantle the conditions Palestinians need to continue living here as a people," B'Tselem executive director Yuli Novak said at a press conference in Jerusalem.

"Calling this a settler colonial project does not deny Jewish connection to this land. It does describe a political project," Novak added.

AFP has reached out to Israeli authorities for comment.