west bank qusra —
Louis Liddy has begun building a house for his two daughters in his hometown of Qusra in the occupied West Bank. The girls grew up in Ohio, but a family vacation led them to fall in love with their father’s Palestinian roots.
“Can you give me your grandmother’s house where you were born and raised?” Liddy told CNN her daughters asked her.
That dream is currently on hold as a group of Israeli settlers surrounds the hilltop where Lidi’s home and two other homes are located, trying to drive out the Palestinian residents.
Settlers set up tents, cut off water and power lines, and blocked roads to prevent anyone from getting close to the residents.
Lidi’s younger brother, Qusai, and Qusai’s son are trapped inside, and they only have enough food for a few days.
“They have their eyes on the house and the top of this hill, and they’re trying to get it,” Qusay said.
“Even if we have to drink salt and water in this house, even if there is not a morsel of bread left, we will not surrender or leave.”
Liddy watched the security camera footage in horror from Ohio and began contacting Israeli authorities responsible for security in this part of the West Bank.
Then, incredibly, Israeli soldiers arrived, warmly welcomed the settlers, and joined them in prayer.
Israeli military and border police arrived at the top of the hill on Wednesday and began removing the settlers’ tents and removing the settlers from the area.
However, that effort ended in failure. Dozens more settlers arrived, moving rocks onto the road and throwing stones at security forces. Security forces were seen firing sonic grenades and spraying settlers with pepper spray before retreating.
A few hours later, we arrived at the scene and were driving up the hill toward Lidi’s house when we were stopped by two Israeli soldiers surrounded by six Israeli settlers.
“This is a closed military area,” one of the soldiers told us. “You are interfering with military operations.”
The order also applies to settlers, but so far it has only been enforced against Palestinians, Israeli human rights activists and journalists who tried to reach the top of the hill.
Unable to reach home, we spoke to Qusai via video call from down the hill.
“I don’t think they will leave easily because they are monsters,” Qusay said of the settlers.
The Israeli army launched a stronger operation on Thursday morning, deploying an infantry battalion “to protect the population and maintain security in the area.”
One of the military’s first moves was to evict more than a dozen Palestinian families in the area, including Qusay, who had moved in with his neighbors. The soldiers said they needed to use their homes as temporary bases to conduct operations against the settlers.
“I hope this is not a ploy by the soldiers to eventually invite settlers into my home,” Qusay told CNN.
Hours later, as the news spread, the military reversed course, saying: “Soldiers have instructed residents of Khusra to remain in their homes.”
By Friday morning, videos shared with CNN showed settlers rebuilding tents outside besieged homes. Israeli soldiers then arrived in two cars and destroyed it, but did not confiscate the blue tarp canopy, leaving it neatly folded on the ground.
Nearly 100 human rights defenders marched in solidarity to Qusra to deliver additional food and water to Palestinian families. Photos sent to CNN by activists showed soldiers laying out supplies in front of houses blocking their way. They were then transferred to the trapped population by left-wing Israeli parliamentarian Ofer Kashif and managed to sneak past the soldiers to reach their homes. But families are still under siege and unable to come and go without fear.
What is happening in Khusra is not an isolated incident. And Qusay and the others living on the besieged hilltop have every reason to fear that if they leave, they will never be allowed to return home.
The same group of settlers who surrounded the hilltop also carried out a similar act against another Palestinian family in a neighboring village last month. And there they succeeded.
For more than two weeks, they besieged Mahmoud Toubasi’s home in Jalou, eventually forcing him and his family to leave. CNN visited the house and saw settlers coming in and out of the house and standing on the roof, where a Savior flag had been erected.
The flag is brandished by settlers and frequently raised over confiscated Palestinian property. It symbolizes religious nationalist claims to the land, seen by extremist settlers as part of the God-ordained return of the Jews.
Tsubashi’s neighbors also said the settlers were threatening them, saying they would be next.
Palestinians in the West Bank claim they are facing what amounts to collective punishment, with attacks on settlers, forced displacement, and Israeli military incursions surging since Hamas’s attack on Israel in October 2023.
According to the United Nations, more than 3,200 Palestinians have been forced to flee across the West Bank this year alone due to settler attacks and destruction.
This occurred against a backdrop of extremist rhetoric from Israeli ministers and government officials who openly stated that their goal was to annex the West Bank and expel Palestinians from the land.
Last month, the Israeli government approved a plan to allocate nearly $800 million to establish new Jewish settlements and build access roads in the West Bank. And dozens of illegal Israeli settler outposts have been rubber-stamped by the Israeli government.
Lidi worries that the Israeli authorities are not doing enough.
The Palestinian-American asked the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem for help protecting his home, but the embassy told him to contact Israeli authorities.
Five days after the siege on Liddy’s home began, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of Israel and a self-described “unapologetic” Christian Zionist, denounced the Israeli settlers’ actions as “a horrific act of terrorism aimed at intimidation and harassment” and said the embassy was “very involved.”
“Things have to change. All we want is to live in peace and dignity,” Louis said. “Living in your own home, without someone standing in front of your house like a monster waiting to attack you.”
