Amnesty: Israeli state backs escalation of settler violence in occupied West Bank

Amnesty International  has strongly condemned the ongoing siege of three Palestinian families’ homes by Israeli settlers in the village of Qusra, southeast of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank

Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty International’s Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns, said:

“The horrors unfolding in Qusra are far from an isolated incident. They reflect the relentless escalation and expansion of an accelerating and well-documented pattern of coordinated and strategic settler terror, enabled, backed and funded by the State of Israel, with the aim of displacing Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.”

The three families under siege have been threatened, harassed and attacked by Israeli settlers from nearby outposts for several months. They have been confined to their homes since Sunday 9^th August, are running out of food, and lack access to basic necessities, including running water. The homes targeted in these attacks are located in Area B of the West Bank, supposedly under Palestinian administrative control and Israeli military control, according to the classification of the Oslo Accords.

The Amnesty official said: “For far too long, the world has ignored the immense, unfathomable suffering of Palestinians being uprooted and erased from land they have inhabited for generations. The international community must stop treating such incidents as ‘isolated’ and instead hold Israel accountable.”

Additionally, sources in Qusra told Amnesty International that the Israeli military forced two of the besieged families, in addition to six neighbouring families, to evacuate their homes for several hours on Thursday and used them as military outposts. One resident explained, “instead of removing the attackers, the Israeli forces removed the attacked families, while allowing the settlers to stay all this time.”