{"id":3739,"date":"2026-08-14T17:35:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T17:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=3739"},"modified":"2026-08-14T17:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T17:35:08","slug":"palestinians-besieged-in-west-bank-village-fear-israeli-settlers-will-seize-their-homes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/coloradospringsmoverss.com\/?p=3739","title":{"rendered":"Palestinians besieged in West Bank village fear Israeli settlers will seize their homes"},"content":{"rendered":"
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready…<\/strong><\/div>

By SAM METZ and AREF TUFAFA<\/strong><\/p>\n

QUSRA, West Bank (AP) \u2014 From inside his home in the West Bank town of Qusra, Qusai Abu Rida watched on Friday as Israeli settlers moved from where they had erected a tent in front of his house to the valley below, rather than returning to the nearby outpost where they live.<\/p>

Read more Wife of US soldier is removed from deportation flight and released from federal immigration custody<\/a><\/p>\n

Even as the army took positions around him and the homes of two other families that settlers had blockaded for most of this week, the settlers remained close enough that Abu Rida feared they would again return after the army left and try to take over the home owned by his Palestinian American brother in Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just don\u2019t know when this will end,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The standoff in Qusra entered a new stage Friday as activists marched toward the besieged homes to try and replenish the families\u2019 food and water supply. But Abu Rida said he was growing tired of the pattern, with Israeli forces removing the settlers, only for them to return and reestablish their positions after the troops withdrew.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a kids\u2019 game, like cat and mouse,\u201d Ziv Stahl, the executive director of the Israeli rights group Yesh Din, said. \u201cIt\u2019s clearly not a matter of capability but a matter of will.\u201d<\/p>\n

The siege of the homes is the latest episode in a wave of settler violence convulsing the occupied West Bank, which Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war and which would make up the main part of a future Palestinian state. Israel\u2019s military said the village \u2014 roughly 10 miles from the Palestinian city of Nablus \u2014 was a closed military zone.<\/p>\n

They did not answer questions about the presence of the settlers. Both Israel\u2019s military and Israel\u2019s police both referred questions arrests in Qusra to the other.<\/p>

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The West Bank has become more dangerous for Palestinians as Israel, under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has approved more than 100 new settlements. Extremist settlers routinely enter Palestinian towns, clashing with villagers, burning homes, mosques and cars.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu is courting blocs of ultranationalist voters ahead of what\u2019s expected to be a difficult reelection campaign in October. He and members of his cabinet have largely dismissed concerns about settler violence as overblown and attributed it to fringe groups of a few hundred youths. Yet rights groups and Palestinians say the government\u2019s policies have made it more difficult to restrain settlers, who are rarely punished for attacks.<\/p>\n

Qusra siege reflects broader violence<\/h4>\n

The standoff in Qusra began on Sunday when dozens of settlers arrived and blocked the doors to the three houses, preventing occupants from leaving, according to the families inside.<\/p>\n