Qusra siege puts Washington and Israel at odds over settler enforcement
As three Qusra families remain besieged without water or power, the US ambassador calls the settlers terrorists while Israel plans to move civilian enforcement from the army to a special police unit.
Geopolitics··Evening
A fifth night in Qusra
In the Ras al-Ain area of Qusra, a village south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, 3 Palestinian families have been confined to their homes since Sunday by about 20 settlers camped around them. The UN human rights office, OHCHR, said roughly 15 people, including at least 2 children, remain inside with water and power cut off, that the settlers’ actions are making life unbearable, and that the clear aim is to force the families from their homes and land. The office warned that time is running out before the families are forcibly displaced. Residents are relying on temporary solar panels and stored well water. One of the households includes the brother and 18-year-old nephew of Loai Ridi, a dual US-Palestinian citizen; Ridi said his brother fears that leaving would let settlers take the house at once. The Palestinian foreign ministry called the assaults systematic and accused Israel of using settlers to advance displacement and annexation. The Israeli military said it had dismantled 2 unauthorised outposts, detained one settler and sent extra troops for patrols; local officials and residents in Qusra doubt the deployment will end the siege.[1], [4], [3]
Washington’s ‘terrorist’ language
US ambassador to Israel Huckabee described the act against the Qusra families as a horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass, and cast the removal of the settlers by Israeli forces as action against Israeli terrorists. He wrote that the US embassy had been closely involved and that the Israel Defense Forces and police had gone, at the American request, to remove the Israeli terrorists doing this, sharing video of a convoy he said was clearing illegal trespassers. Al Jazeera notes that US officials have long condemned settler violence in general terms without calling Israeli settlers terrorists. Huckabee’s wording is an unusually sharp public rebuke from an ambassador who has supported Israeli settlements. Palestinians in the village remain sceptical that the language will be matched by enforcement. More than 700,000 settlers live in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, and new outposts rose from an average of 8 a year between 2012 and 2022 to 86 in 2025. The convoy in Huckabee’s video has not visibly ended the water and power cut for the families; village scepticism feeds on that gap.[1]
A police handover and the return to Ganim
Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered the military to draw up a plan transferring civilian law enforcement over Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank from the army to the police, which would set up a specialised unit with its own powers and funding. Officers would still need army support in Areas A and B, where they would not gain independent access. Katz argued the change would let the military focus on fighting Palestinian armed groups and on border security rather than chasing youths on the hills. The directive followed days of clashes near Qusra, where settlers built an unauthorised outpost on Palestinian land and surrounded 3 homes for 5 nights. In the same week Ajith Sunghay, who heads the UN human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territory, said settlers had returned to Ganim, one of 4 northern West Bank settlements evacuated in 2005, and called it a repeated trend. OHCHR also said more than 34,000 Palestinians remain forcibly displaced from the Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin camps since Israel’s military operation began in January 2025. The Qusra siege, Washington’s sharper language, Katz’s enforcement plan and the return to Ganim together show how settler violence is testing not only one village but the architecture of policing and the vocabulary of diplomacy.[1], [2], [3], [4]
