The IDF on Thursday reversed an order for Palestinian residents of the West Bank town of Kusra to evacuate amid escalating violence by Jewish settler extremists targeting local residents.
Earlier on Thursday, the Mayor of Kusra had told Qatari media outlet Al Jazeera that the IDF has closed the village off, imposed a curfew, and deployed numerous soldiers to try to dismantle the settler outpost, while asking local residents to evacuate ahead of a planned operation in the town.
In a clarification issued later that day, the Israeli military stressed that its forces “will not operate in the home of the Palestinian family located near the point where the shed was erected, evacuated, and dismantled.”
Ongoing violence in Kusra leaves residents feeling ‘helpless’
The ongoing violence in the Palestinian village of Kusra has left residents feeling helpless, with resident Marmar Odeh stating it was “the first time in [he felt] there was no law in the State of Israel,” in an interview with KAN Reshet Bet on Thursday.
“After the army left, masked men came to my house, searched me, and checked my ID. There were also journalists at my house, including Israelis, who saw everything and took pictures.”
Tensions between Jewish extremist settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank escalated after a group of extremists imposed a makeshift siege on Kusra on Wednesday.
Odeh recounted an incident in which a little girl in his family accidentally broke her arm and was not able to receive timely medical care due to the chaos.
“They tried to evacuate her in an ambulance, but the army turned it back, and the settlers wouldn’t let it leave either,” Odeh told KAN. “The next day they obtained permission from the army again, and managed to get the ambulance in to take the girl and her mother to the hospital.”
The settler extremists also set up in a tent in the village and severed electric cables and water tubes, creating difficult conditions for Odeh and Kusra’s residents.
“They can’t even open the window of the house. They have no electricity, and they haven’t had water for more than two weeks. They had some water in the cistern; every house has a cistern, but it’s not the best water to drink from,” he added.
Settlers involved in Kusra violence ‘really need to be stopped,’ Ben-Gvir says
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told Reshet Bet that while he admires the settlers building outposts, “there are some among them who really need to be stopped.”
Yisrael Gantz, the head of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council and chairman of the Yesha Council, described the Kusra incident as “improper and unacceptable.”
“There is no place for making a private decision to establish a hilltop outpost in the yard of a house, even when it is an illegal house or an attempt to take control of the area,” Gantz continued. “There is no justification whatsoever for violence against uninvolved people or against security forces.”
Yashar Party leader Gadi Eisenkot denounced the settler actions in Kusra, and the government’s “negligence” in the matter in a Twitter/X post on Thursday.
“In the face of anarchy and violent lawbreaking by an extremist minority, the government abandons IDF commanders to fight the battle alone,” Eisenkot said.