Colluding with Violence: Aiding Israeli Settlers in the West Bank

The latest incidents of Israeli settler violence in the villages of Qusra and Kour, located in the northern occupied West Bank, have again caught international attention, reaching the halls of the United Nations with a gravity that, sadly, is unlikely to have much effect. Towards the end of July, the settlers had set their sights on local mosques, which they set on fire. From August 9, three families in Qusra – making up 15 people in all – were confined to their homes in terror, running out of food and necessities. (Settlers had deprived them of access to water and power.) When Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances attempted to deliver food and water to these homes, they were attacked.

Unusually, this conduct drew public commentary from the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, a devout Christian Zionist not normally given to criticising Israeli actions in the West Bank, let alone anywhere else. “Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting,” wrote Huckabee in a post on X. “No excuse for such thuggish behaviour.” The US embassy had been “VERY involved & the IDF & Israel Police have gone at our request to remove the Israeli terrorists doing this”. (More to the point, interest might have been encouraged by the fact that one of the besieged family members was a dual US citizen.)

Rather than restraining the agitators, the Israeli military proceeded to force two of the besieged families, along with six other neighbouring families, to exit their homes for several hours on August 13. UN News reported that families were subsequently relocated to just one home, also imperilled by the settlers. According to the testimony of one resident, “instead of removing the attackers, the Israeli forces removed the attacked families, while allowing the settlers to stay all this time”. The mayor of Qusra, Abdel Azim Wadi, regarded the role of the Israeli military as pernicious and distinctly not committed to removing the settlers. “We saw them praying together, barbecuing together and dancing together.” They were hardly “interested in helping the besieged families.” The IDF even goes so far as to run a hotline known as War Room C, intended for use by settlers to report on building activities by Palestinians in Area C. The insinuation of fault is clear. The UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner summed up matters: “These criminal actions by the settlers, supported or acquiesced to by Israel, the Occupying power, are making life unbearable for these Palestinian families and are clearly aimed at forcing them to leave their home and their land.”

On August 11, Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Process, told the 15-member Security Council that what was unfolding in the West Bank was the result of “decades of unresolved conflict that has deepened the unlawful Israeli occupation, driven the Palestinian Authority to the brink of collapse and undermined the prospects of an independent, viable and sovereign Palestinian State”.

The picture sketched by Alakbarov is a dismal one, rendering Israeli authorities complicit with the unruly urges of the settlers. (Some 26% of territory in the West Bank is already regarded as “state land”, a status enabling it to be turned over for the construction of new settlements.) Since the start of 2026, approximately 12,360 housing units have been approved or advanced by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank. Hefty sums are being allocated for expanding the settlements, including $431 million in aid of 34 new settlements. The year has also seen the deaths of 76 Palestinians in the territory, due to the work of Israeli forces or settlers. Of this complement, 18 have been children. Three Israelis have also been killed in confrontations with Palestinians. The displacement of the Palestinian population due to settler violence, demolitions and evictions continues with inexorable remorselessness: some 3,800, almost half of them children, have suffered that fate. “Many incidents occurred in the presence of Israeli forces,” insists Alakbarov.

The momentum towards annexation is also being given impetus by plans announced by the Israeli Defence Minister, Israel Katz, to replace the army in the West Bank with civilian police forces. Police would, according to Katz’s office, “establish an appropriate force to handle and address civilian matters”, with the military exclusively tasked with combating “Palestinian terrorism” and protecting borders and communities. The move received much support from various settler figures, with Yisrael Ganz, head of the Regional Binyamin Council in the West Bank, proposing that the next step be taken: the cancellation of the Oslo Accords and the application of “full Israeli sovereignty” over the territory. “The time has come to move from temporary management to the full application of Israeli law.”

The official policy of the Netanyahu government is to regard the attacks as the nasty work of errant juveniles or delinquents who should know better. The thesis on delinquency is not one that holds up when placed alongside the official support for settlement expansion and de facto annexation stemming from Israel proper. The events in Qusra, as with elsewhere in the West Bank, suggest a script of insidious collaboration against the Palestinians, delivered with a forked tongue. The painful implication here is that temporary measures involving the besieging of villagers, and half-hearted efforts by the IDF to combat them, can only inevitably result in dispossession. And that, in the end, is the point.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com

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