Getting to the besieged house is surprisingly easy. From the edge of the village of Qusra, the car goes several hundred meters along a bumpy, winding track. Neither settlers nor soldiers can be seen in the hilly landscape in the midday heat. Then you have the large building in front of you, which has been seen in countless videos and television reports for days.
A heavy metal gate opens - and is quickly pushed shut again by a young man as soon as the car has driven into the yard. A handful of Palestinians are holding out here, next to whose house radical settlers pitched a tent a week ago.
Qusai Abu Ridi comes out and welcomes the visitors. “You were lucky,” says the Palestinian. “You are the first visitors to come to us since Ofer Cassif.” The Knesset member Cassif reached the family on Friday - but only with difficulty. The army initially refused to let the well-known left-wing politician through. Other visitors should also be kept away; the army has declared a “closed military zone”.
Now it's Saturday. It is the seventh day since Israeli settlers set up an "outpost" below Abu Ridi's home. Something like this now happens practically every week somewhere in the West Bank - but not every time right next to houses. The settlers blocked access to two other houses and threatened the residents. In effect, they have locked the Palestinians in their homes.
Is the army incompetent or unwilling?
The case attracted greater attention - which increased when soldiers failed to remove the settlers from the area after several days. Meanwhile, every development in Qusra is being closely monitored. Television networks have set up cameras on a hill overlooking the scene; Israeli media sends its most experienced reporters.
Depending on your point of view, what they see is evidence of the army's inability or unwillingness to take action against settlers. Some speak of “chaos”, others of “theatre”. Either way it raises questions. The most powerful army in the Middle East fails in full view of the public to drive a dozen delinquents off a hill. This way they can maintain their de facto blockade.
Some of the Palestinians in the house seem surprisingly calm about it all. Qusai Abu Ridi lies back on the small bed on the first floor of the house and smokes a water pipe. The large panoramic windows offer a breathtaking view of the West Bank. In the evening light you can see the Mediterranean from here, he explains - and from the roof in the opposite direction, Jordan. “That’s why the settlers want to have this place.”
Around half a dozen people are in the three-story house, which is still under construction. In addition to Qusai Abu Ridi and his 18-year-old son, this is currently the neighboring family: Youssef Hassan, his wife and their two small daughters. She was thrown out of her house, which is two dozen meters below, by the army a few days ago. The soldiers have temporarily seized the building to set up a post there.
Hassan's wife Ruqaya seems less relaxed. “I’m scared,” she says as the daughters whirl around the house. “I want to go back to our house, but the soldiers won’t let us.” Youssef Hassan's brother lives in the third house with his sister and his mother. From the yard you can see them at the windows and wave to them.
A Palestinian hands medicine into the car
The biggest problem right now is supply. The settlers have cut off the water supply and partly also the electricity supply, and the army is keeping visitors away. It was only on Friday that human rights activists managed to bring food - but the army only allowed them to leave the bags a few meters in front of the house, and the residents then had to bring them in.
On Saturday, too, a young Palestinian was waiting on the outskirts of Qusra. As the car drives by, in which the F.A.Z. reporter, two other journalists and an Israeli activist from the group Mistaklim (Looking the Occupation in the Eye) are sitting, he passes a bag of medication through the window. Hassan's younger daughter needs her.
This is just one of many bizarre aspects of the crisis. It started with an unusual incident. After the settlers had pitched their tent next to the three houses on the Sunday before last, a small army troop arrived. But instead of driving out or arresting the settlers, the soldiers prayed with them. This scene, captured on video, sparked great media interest in Israel in the first place.
Even after that, the army looked anything but good. In a statement, it condemned the establishment of the outpost and announced disciplinary measures against the soldiers. On Wednesday she announced that the border police had removed the tent. However, the settlers were obviously still there afterwards. The army leadership then announced that an additional infantry battalion would be deployed to the area to “strengthen operational control.”
Despite the alleged reinforcements, the same spectacle took place on Thursday - and on Friday as well: in the morning, soldiers tore down the tent that had been rebuilt during the night. A short time later, however, settlers were spotted again.
Around a dozen young settlers marched in front of the house
Instead of cracking down, the military began ejecting Palestinian residents on the outskirts of Qusra from their homes. This was done “to protect them,” the army claimed in a statement on Thursday. Soldiers would take up positions in the houses as part of “defensive operations.” Hours later it was said that the eviction orders had been withdrawn and the residents could return. But a unit also occupies Youssef Hassan's house on weekends.
The Palestinians in Abu Ridi's house do not feel safe despite the presence of the soldiers. Why becomes clear about ten minutes after the visitors arrive. Settlers appear behind the wall that surrounds the site. About a dozen Israelis come marching down the hill. They are mostly young, some probably still teenagers. Their hairstyles and clothing suggest that they belong to the religious-Zionist youth gangs that harass Palestinians in many places in the West Bank.
Some of the Palestinians and journalists run out to film the settlers. They shout insults over the wall. One sees Youssef Hassan and calls out to him: “Ah, Youssef – you’re scared, huh?” When they spot the two foreign journalists present on the premises, one loudly says “Goyim” (non-Jews). The scene is quite threatening, especially from the perspective of the enclosed house. Qusai Abu Ridi shows videos that show that the settlers have already penetrated into the courtyard of the house itself.
The soldiers discuss with the settlers
It doesn't get that far that day. After a few minutes, an army unit appears below the house. The masked and armed soldiers begin to argue with the settlers. They refer to the “closed military zone,” which prohibits all non-residents from entering. The settlers reluctantly go back up the hill, step by step.
Some of them walk around the house and roam through a small garden behind it. Others complain to the soldiers. This is selective prosecution, they say; The journalists and activists would also have to go. For now, the soldiers leave the visitors unmolested. Finally the group of settlers leaves.
Qusai Abu Ridi points to the hill next to which the house is located. The army has recently stopped allowing settlers to sleep in tents, he says. They were now sleeping somewhere in the trees.
The problems for the residents of the area also began on this hill. Qusra and four other Palestinian villages form a kind of ring. They are part of Area B of the West Bank, where the Palestinian Authority is responsible for civilian matters. So far there have been no settlements there.
The outpost has political backing
However, earlier this year settlers set up a small outpost midway between the five villages - on the hill next to Abu Ridi's house. His name is Tel Talpiot. Since then there have been repeated attacks on houses in the area, says Abu Ridi. In March, the house his family was building on the outskirts of Qusra was attacked for the first time. For this reason, at least two family members have always been in the house since April. With the erection of the tent next to the house, the situation has now escalated; it is an offshoot of Tel Talpiot.
Sarit Michaeli, a veteran activist and long-time observer of settlement construction, calls the outpost's residents "extremely violent." At the end of February, they beat up Israeli activists from the Mistaklim group. And in mid-March, a settler from Tel Talpiot shot and killed a Palestinian from Qusra. Many more attacks came from Tel Talpiot. It is “unbelievable how much an outpost in the middle of five villages can disrupt the lives of so many people,” says Michaeli.
The Israeli highlights another aspect: Tel Talpiot was created with clear political backing, she says. In the person of Amichai Chikli, a minister from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party even visited the violent outpost in April. Such connections from the founders of new illegal outposts to the upper echelons of politics are documented in many cases. At the same time, violence continues to increase. In the first half of 2026, the number of serious attacks by settlers increased by 63 percent compared to the same period last year, Israeli media recently reported, citing figures from the security authorities. More than 2,200 Palestinians have been displaced by settler violence or blockades this year, according to the United Nations.
In the army, the proximity to the settlers is becoming ever greater
The Israeli army's ideological closeness to the settlers has also been increasing for years - which could explain the soldiers' hesitant behavior. Some commanders have now avoided taking action against violent settlers out of fear for their careers, according to a report in the Haaretz newspaper. In the case of Qusra, there are said to be differences of opinion among commanders about how to proceed. Soldiers have also reportedly said they would defy orders to drive out the settlers there. The army now has a “settler-oriented DNA,” says Sarit Michaeli.
At the same time, the escalation has now reached the international level. The large house on the outskirts of Qusra belongs to Qusai Abu Ridi's brother Loui. He is an American citizen and lives in Ohio. This led even the American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, to comment on the events. In an entry on Platform X on Thursday, he spoke of “disgusting behavior” and called the settlers “Israeli terrorists.” This is notable not least because Huckabee, an evangelical Christian, fundamentally supports settlement construction. In another entry on X he wrote that settlers were not the problem, but only a “very small minority”.
The discontent in the White House is said to be great. Netanyahu is expected there to publicly condemn the settlers' behavior, the Reuters news agency reported on Friday, citing American and Israeli government officials. That didn't happen until Sunday. Defense Minister Israel Katz has not yet publicly called for decisive action, but on the contrary has tried to shift responsibility to the police. At the same time it was said that the army unit in Qusra would be replaced by another. It is therefore difficult to say how the confrontation will end.
