'We will stand our ground until death': Qusra families fear permanent displacement as settler siege drags on

Palestinian families forced from their homes in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra remain displaced even after the Israeli military moved to remove terrorist settlers from the area, an intervention that one displaced resident told The New Arab was intended to “silence the media” rather than bring the siege to an end.

The intervention followed days in which Israeli forces had enabled settlers during the siege, restricting Palestinian residents while allowing settlers to move through the area. The military later dismantled illegal settler outposts after the siege drew international attention.

Yousef Hassan, whose family home was besieged by Israeli terrorists on Sunday, 9 August, said the change had brought little relief. Israeli soldiers now occupy his home, and his family remains displaced elsewhere in the village.

Hassan said residents fear the Israeli army operation could ultimately make their displacement permanent.

"I believe the army carried out this operation to silence the media," he told The New Arab, referring to broad international coverage of the siege that preceded Israeli forces dismantling illegal settler outposts around the village.

The coverage brought widespread condemnation, including from US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, an avid supporter of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, who finally labelled the settlers' actions as terrorism.

Yet the military action that followed has not returned Qusra's displaced families to their homes.

Since the Israeli military declared the village, south of Nablus, a closed military zone on 13 August, several Palestinian families have been displaced to other parts of Qusra. Hassan's home remains occupied by Israeli soldiers.

The consequences are increasingly pressing. Hassan's four-year-old daughter is due to begin school soon, he said, and could be deprived of an education if the siege continues.

He does not know how long the situation will last. The family has nowhere else to go and remains determined to return home.

"We will stand our ground here until death," he said.

Conditions across Qusra, meanwhile, continue to deteriorate.

On Wednesday, Qusra's mayor, Abdul Azim Wadi, warned that the town was running out of food and medical supplies, an account Hassan also affirmed.

Despite the Israeli military presence, settlers continue to roam the area.

"Sometimes there are five and sometimes as many as 15," are present in and around Qusra, Hassan told Medical Aid for Palestinians.

The siege has also seen the Israeli military close a factory for a week, while supplies have entered the village only once through a UNICEF convoy.

Settlers cut water and electricity to the town as part of the siege, though the municipality has since managed to restore the utilities.

Even those efforts faced interference, with Israeli forces positioned around the village and the Ras al-Ain area attacking an electrical team during an earlier attempt to reconnect the village, Wadi said.

"What is different now is that there is an intention for this presence to continue," he added, comparing the current siege with decades of previous settler attacks in which Palestinian homes were burned and livestock stolen.

The deteriorating conditions have also created an increasingly acute healthcare crisis.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) held a medical day in Qusra on Tuesday, treating 431 patients in a single day.

Milena Ansari, Director of the Occupied Palestinian Territory Department for PHRI, told The New Arab: "Residents told us that Qusra, despite having more than 7,000 people, has only a tiny clinic operating in a room beneath the mosque, with a doctor available for just two hours once a week."

"Almost all types of medicines are missing," she added.

Ansari said the shortages could not be separated from the conditions imposed on Qusra. Israeli checkpoints effectively prevent residents from accessing homes, services and healthcare, restrictions she described as existing "by design".

"A medical team should not have to enter a besieged village simply to provide people with basic care."

The siege is unfolding amid a wider surge in settler terrorism and Palestinian displacement across the occupied West Bank.

Five Palestinians were injured on Thursday after Israeli settlers attacked a vehicle, causing it to overturn between the villages of al-Mughayyir and Abu Falah, north of Ramallah, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Human Rights Watch said on Thursday that 107 Palestinian communities have been fully or partially displaced since January 2023 because of settler attacks, while Peace Now has said settler outposts control nearly one fifth of the occupied West Bank.

Amnesty International has labelled the mass displacement of Palestinians through settler attacks as state-sanctioned ethnic cleansing.

Ansari said what was happening in Qusra could not be understood solely as settler activity, describing it as part of "the Israeli government’s tools of de facto annexation".

"Settlers attack Palestinians, seize land, destroy homes and agricultural property, and prevent farmers from reaching their own land, while the Israeli state and military repeatedly fail to protect Palestinians or hold perpetrators accountable," she said.

"Palestinians are pushed out, and settlers take over."