In this case, one of the homes is owned by Loui Ridi, a Palestinian with American citizenship from Ohio. He traveled back to Qusra, putting up an American flag on the roof of his house. Israeli forces had declared the area a “closed military zone” and removed the tent settlers had erected, but did not restore the Palestinian residents’ ability to move in and out freely. Settlers still roamed around, in violation of the order, while the Israeli Army effectively replaced the settlers in surrounding the homes.
“Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting,” the U.S. ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said in a statement on X. Mr. Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog have also condemned these attacks. But the settler militias terrorizing Qusra and other villages across the West Bank could not continue to act as they are without state and military cover. These are not isolated extremists or hooligans, as Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Netanyahu and other leaders have said.
Nor is this simply settler violence. In the West Bank, Palestinians live in daily fear for their lives. Mr. Ridi is not the only homeowner at risk. Even as the U.S. flag waved over his home, there was another settler attack against a different Palestinian home in Qusra on Aug. 29. Israeli settlers arrived in white pickup trucks, their faces masked, throwing stones. Despite a statement by Mr. Netanyahu condemning the act and assuring that authorities would take action, there has been only one reported arrest related to the attacks in Qusra and a handful of arrests related to other settler-based violence in the area. These moves may not result in much: Even when arrests are made, only 3 percent of settlers are convicted.
In other words, what’s happened in Qusra is a feature, not a bug, of Israeli policy, which has expanded and deepened its control over the occupied territory over the last four years. This has been accomplished through intensifying economic strangulation, restrictions on freedom of movement, transferring governing powers from military to civilian control and, most egregiously, the emboldening of settler militias. Such groups already existed when the current government was formed in late 2022. But in the past three years, these militias have been largely given free rein to intimidate, harass and make Palestinian life in the West Bank unbearable. Since 2023, thousands of Palestinians have been displaced by a combination of settler attacks, military operations and restrictions on access and movement. On Sept. 2, Israeli forces demolished homes and structures in the Palestinian village of Khirbet al Tabban in the southern West Bank, rendering the village’s 70 residents homeless.
The Hamas attack on Oct. 7, the deadliest single attack on Israelis in the country’s history, accelerated the use of violence in general, and settler militias in particular, under the most pro-settler, far-right government in Israeli history. Under this government, Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, has expedited the destruction of Palestinian homes while streamlining the building of Israeli ones, whereas Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security minister, has distributed arms to Israelis by easing regulations for licenses, adding around 7,000 firearms to settlers. This has further blurred the line between civilian and soldier, enabling armed settlers to act with a sense of authority whether wearing a uniform or not, most acting without any command structure and with a sense of entitlement — and impunity.
