US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said there is broad agreement in Israel in condemning violence in the occupied West Bank, as settler attacks against Palestinians intensify amid concerns over attempts to impose a new reality on the ground.
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Huckabee said around 500,000 Israelis living in the West Bank are “disgusted” by a group of troublemakers whom he said are incorrectly described as settlers.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Maariv newspaper quoted a military source as saying that police had not arrested any settlers involved in Saturday’s incidents in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
The ambassador’s remarks came as attacks have escalated in several parts of the West Bank, alongside Palestinian warnings over expanding settler violence and Israeli measures targeting Palestinian villages.
Israel Hayom reported Sunday, citing Israeli military sources, that there are concerns that some members of the government may be interested in escalating tensions in the West Bank for political reasons.
The sources said the military “will not support any steps in the West Bank that are not compelled by realities on the ground.”
In the latest violence, dozens of masked and armed Israeli settlers attacked homes around Qusra on Saturday, in the first major assault since settlers imposed a blockade in the area earlier this month, prompting international condemnation.
The settlers surrounded a Palestinian home and pelted it with stones while seven Palestinians were trapped inside, according to witnesses who spoke to Reuters.
Saddam Uday, one of those trapped inside, said Israeli soldiers fired tear gas into the house and detained the residents, while no settlers were detained and they were allowed to leave.
The homeowner, Louay Bayrouti, said Israeli forces tied the residents’ hands, blindfolded them and beat them before later releasing them.
The Israeli military, however, said army and Border Police forces arrived at the scene to disperse what it described as “rioters” and protect the people inside the house.
Bayrouti said he and six others remained trapped inside the house for more than an hour as settlers threw stones at it. Uday, a paramedic, said four of those trapped were injured by tear gas and two others were injured by stones thrown by settlers.
The attack occurred a few hundred yards from three homes that settlers surrounded in August, triggering international condemnation and prompting a large Israeli military deployment in the area.
In his first public response to the Qusra incidents, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned acts of violence in the villages of Qusra and Jalud, blaming what he called “a handful of rioters.”
The United States had pressed Netanyahu to condemn settlers who had surrounded Palestinians inside their homes, according to Reuters, citing US and Israeli officials.
Warnings of Attempts to Impose a New Reality
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry warned Saturday against the continued escalation by Israel and its settlers against the village of Al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, saying measures imposed on the village were aimed at isolating it and besieging its residents.
The ministry said Israel had imposed “suffocating blockade measures” on the village for nearly 20 days by controlling the opening and closing of its entrance gates.
Human rights groups say the growing presence of settlers on the outskirts of Palestinian villages is part of a broader effort to seize more Palestinian land and reduce the territory on which Palestinians seek to establish their state.
A United Nations investigation concluded in June that Israeli authorities were directly involved in settler attacks that killed, injured and displaced Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Israel’s mission in Geneva rejected the findings.
The United Nations and most countries around the world consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, while Israel rejects that position and considers the West Bank disputed territory.
