DUBAI: Since Sunday, Israeli settlers have laid siege to the West Bank village of Qusra to drive out its Palestinian inhabitants and claim their homes as their own.
The harrowing event, which has seen three Palestinian families cut off from water, electricity and the outside world by a settler encampment, is the latest chapter in the escalating settler violence that has plagued the West Bank for decades.
“I think all the events at Qusra are emblematic of the broader problems … settlers have been setting up outposts all over the West Bank,” Chris Doyle, director of the London-based Council for Arab-British Understanding, told Arab News.
“They’ve been taking over Palestinian properties. None of that really is new, and we’ve just seen an increasing escalation year-on-year.”
Doyle said that the Qusra seige stood out for its inclusion of a Palestinian American citizen, which may have helped to trigger a rare condemnation from the staunchly pro-Israel US ambassador in Jerusalem, Mike Huckabee, who called it an “act of terror.”
“It’s one of the few times anybody in the Trump administration has spoken out against what’s happening in the West Bank,” he added.
However, he warned against attempts to isolate the situation or exonerate Israeli authorities, a sentiment that was echoed by Aisha Mansour, Medical Aid for Palestinians, West Bank director, who said that these occurrences had become part of every day life.
“This is not simply settler violence carried out by individuals. It is happening with the full backing and protection of the Israeli state,” she told Arab News.
“Our teams are seeing the consequences of this impunity every day, as attacks on healthcare in the West Bank more than quadrupled last month; the highest monthly total recorded this year.”
Israeli soldiers are seen as Israeli settlers set-up a tent just outside the entrance of a besieged Palestinian family home in the village of Qusra, south of the city Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on August 14, 2026, nearly a week after the settlers began blockading Palestinian homes defying attempts by the Israeli military to remove them. (FILE/AFP)
The Qusra siege has seen a flurry of international condemnation, including from the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, who told Arab News that settler violence across the West Bank was not isolated but formed part of a coordinated state policy aimed at forcibly displacing Palestinians and consolidating illegal annexation.
“What is alarming is the way in which settler violence goes hand-in-glove with the expansion of settlements and outposts and the progressive annexation of Palestinian land,” the UN rights office said in a statement.
“This incident therefore simply highlights an ongoing trend of violence, intimidation and displacement that makes it increasingly difficult for entire communities to remain on their land.”
Under increasing pressure, the Israeli military on Thursday sent in troops to quell the siege, however one of the trapped residents told MAP that the IDF had instead kicked him of the house.
“The army tried to remove the settlers, but unfortunately, they did not make much effort to do so. This morning, the army came and told us that we had to evacuate our home because they wanted to turn it into a military zone,” Yousef Hassan, a resident of Qusra, said on Thursday.
“We were forced to leave our home, and we are currently staying at my brother’s house, while the settlers remain in the area.”
The Israeli military said that troops had been instructed that Qusra residents should remain in their homes and that forces would not operate inside the besieged properties. However, nevertheless, soldiers had entered Palestinian homes during the operation.
“The Israeli police and military, you know, have a completely inadequate response. They are not prepared to take the settlers on, Doyle said.
“As we’ve seen across the West Bank, when it comes to dealing with the settlers and the Palestinians, it’s the Palestinians who get moved out, pushed on. The settlers are never held to account in any proper way, or only in sort of tokenistic fashion. Settler violence is not treated as a serious criminal action. And indeed, we had the Israeli defense minister boasting as to why he had de-prescribed settler terrorism only recently.”
Israeli soldiers stand in front of the entrance of a besieged Palestinian house by Israeli settlers in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, on August 14, 2026. (FILE/AFP)
Doyle highlighted that settlers were governed by Israeli civilian law, while Palestinians were ruled over by military law as exemplary of the system of apartheid that, if continued, would keep on producing scenes such as those seen in Qusra.
He believed that if European and International powers wanted to save what little hope was left for a two-state solution, they would need to act immedietley.
“The international community, such as it is, but those who are prepared to stand up and be counted on this issue at least, have to take action,” he said.
“This has got to include a minimum of a ban on any trade, any dealings with the settlements, but also the occupation as itself, because this is not a problem of a few settlers. There is an entire movement backed by the government, heavily funded, subsidized, that is at play here.”
Under the 1995 Oslo II Accord, the West Bank was divided into Areas A, B and C, with Area B, home to hundreds of Palestinian communities, placed under Palestinian civil administration while Israel retained overriding security responsibilities.
Israeli settlement expansion was historically concentrated in Area C, but in recent years settler outposts have increasingly pushed into Area B. Israeli monitoring group, Peace Now, says that at least 21 outposts have been established in Area B over the past two-and-a-half years, many of them expanding despite lacking formal authorization.
Palestinians and activists arrive to protest against Israeli settlers besieging a Palestinian family home in the village of Qusra, south of the city Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on August 14, 2026, nearly a week after the settlers began blockading Palestinian homes defying attempts by the Israeli military to remove them. (FILE/AFP)
The growth forms part of a much wider acceleration of settlement activity, by April 2026, Peace Now recorded 363 settler outposts across the West Bank, 212 of them established since the current Israeli government took office in late 2022.
“The Qusra incident should therefore not be viewed in isolation from the broader reality of settlement expansion, the establishment and retroactive authorization of outposts, land seizure, restrictions on Palestinian access, settler violence and the failure to ensure effective protection and accountability,” the UN rights office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory warned.
“These measures increasingly create facts on the ground, altering the character and demographic composition of the occupied territory, including through the ongoing forcible transfer of Palestinians and the transfer of part of Israel’s own civilian population into the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in violation of international law, and raising serious concerns of ethnic cleansing.”
