UN and Palestine condemn Israeli settlers besieging Palestinian homes in West Bank

The UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) and the Palestinian Foreign Ministry have condemned the days-long siege by Israeli settlers of Palestinian families in the village of Qusra in the occupied West Bank.

The statements came on Thursday as dozens of Israeli settlers continued to besiege three Palestinian families in the Ras al-Ain area west of Qusra for the fifth consecutive night.

“These criminal acts by settlers, supported or ignored by Israel, the occupying power, are making life unbearable for these Palestinian families and are clearly aimed at forcing them to leave their homes and land,” the UN human rights office said.

According to the office, the three families — totaling 15 people, including two children — have been trapped inside their homes without water or electricity since Sunday. It warned: “Time is running out for these three families before they are forcibly displaced.”

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry issued a statement condemning the settlers for carrying out “systematic attacks that can only be described as terrorism.” The ministry also accused Israel of using settlers as an “uncontrolled tool to implement criminal policies” aimed at forcibly displacing and annexing the West Bank.

Earlier on Thursday, the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, also described the settlers' actions as “terrorism.”

‘This is only a farce’

Al Jazeera's Nida Ibrahim, reporting from the scene of the siege on Thursday, said Israeli soldiers initially tried to move the trapped families out of their homes while the settlers remained camped outside.

The families refused, fearing that Israeli soldiers would not allow them to return, and they were eventually moved into a single house. Residents have previously seen settlers push families out and take over their property in the past.

Qusra has faced settler attacks for decades, and residents link the surge in violence to the expansion of illegal settlements and the lack of accountability for attackers.

On Thursday, the Israeli army said its forces dismantled “two illegal outposts” in Qusra and a nearby village and arrested one Israeli. It said it had deployed additional soldiers to “carry out defensive and patrol missions.”

However, Ibrahim said most Palestinians believe the Israeli military is staging a response to the settler siege only for the media, and they expect the settlers to return eventually.

Qusra's mayor, Abdel Azim Wadi, told Al Jazeera that the Israeli army had protected and assisted the settlers. “We see them praying together, grilling together, and dancing together,” he said. “They show little concern for helping the besieged families.”

Qusra resident Abdul Kareem Hassan said he had been sleeping in his car for seven months to protect his home. “This is only a farce,” he said. “If they (the Israeli army) were serious, the whole operation wouldn't take more than an hour. We're talking about about 20 settlers. If they treated them the way they treat Palestinians, they could have handled it in under an hour.”

Another day of no tolerance

Elsewhere in the West Bank on Thursday, settlers and Israeli soldiers continued a campaign of escalating violence against Palestinians, according to the Wafa news agency.

Israeli forces issued demolition orders for homes in Kafr Sur, the Jalazone camp, and farmers' shacks in al-Jiftlik.

In Qalqilya, soldiers arrested seven relatives of a Palestinian gunman killed in an airstrike in 2024. Soldiers also arrested three Palestinians amid settler incursions in Burqa, east of Ramallah.

Settler attacks occurred across several towns and villages, including one in which three Palestinians, one of them a child, were sprayed with tear gas from a vehicle.

Settlers also re-established a settlement near Jenin and erected a new outpost on land belonging to a town near Tulkarem.