Israeli settlers pitch tents for new illegal outpost in occupied West Bank 

Israeli settlers have erected tents for a new illegal settlement outpost near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, as separate groups of settlers have besieged the village of Qusra for a week.

Settlers pitched tents in the Wadi Zeytun area near the village of Umm Safa, northwest of Ramallah, on Sunday in an attempt to establish a new settlement outpost, said Al Jazeera’s Tharwat Shakra.

Reporting from Ramallah, she said settlers also began establishing a separate outpost in the village of Burqa on the same day.

If a new outpost is established, the number of outposts surrounding the two neighbouring villages will rise to six, said the Palestinian news agency Wafa, which also reported the encroachment in Wadi Zeytun.

Settlers have seized roughly 4,700 of Umm Safa’s 4,800 dunams (about 470 of 480 hectares, or 1,160 of 1,186 acres), and 10,000 of Burqa’s 12,000 dunams (1,000 of 1,200 hectares, or 2,471 of 2,965 acres), according to Shakra.

Meanwhile, in the Ras al-Ain area of the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, an Israeli settler siege on three families has entered a second week, with 15 Palestinians, including two children, besieged in their homes.

Israeli soldiers rotated their positions and erected a tent in front of residents’ homes after spending the previous two days dismantling one that settlers had tried to put up there, Shakra reported. Municipal crews later restored electricity and water lines to the besieged families.

In separate incidents on Sunday, Al Jazeera reporters in the West Bank said settlers attacked a Palestinian home in the town of Beit Imrin, north of Nablus, and detained those inside. Israeli forces then arrived and arrested nine people from the house before withdrawing. Soldiers also blocked Palestinian Red Crescent teams from reaching the area and confiscated the keys to ambulances and medical-relief vehicles, Shakra reported.

There were also attacks in the Nab’a al-Kaabneh community near Taybeh, Shakra said, and an attempted raid on a home in Turmus Aya, both in the Ramallah district. Attacks in Hebron’s al-Jaabari neighbourhood left Palestinians injured, including some by gunfire, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society told Al Jazeera that Israeli forces have escalated arrests in towns where illegal settler outposts have been established, targeting residents who confront the attacks.

Israeli settler violence and the ongoing siege of three Palestinian homes in Qusra should be understood as part of Israel’s decades-long rule of “impunity”, which has now reached a “climax”, said Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Sunday, she said Israel has no right to carry out military incursions on Palestinian territory and is instead obligated to protect civilians from military action. Israeli officials, however, appear to be collaborating with settlers rather than restraining them, she said.

“Israel has outsourced coercion to the settlers and is using them to advance ethnic cleansing,” Albanese said. “This is a crime… This is utter terrorism; these settlers should be investigated and prosecuted.”

She said that while Israel’s endgame may be “ethnic cleansing”, it is using “war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide as the means to continue the Nakba” – the catastrophic ethnic cleansing and forced displacement of Palestinians in 1948, during the creation of Israel.

Mustafa Barghouti, the secretary-general of the Palestinian National Initiative, told Al Jazeera the situation in the West Bank was “extremely dangerous”, saying settler groups were carrying out “an average of 30 attacks every day” as they “spearhead” a campaign to seize land and displace Palestinians.

Barghouti said the goal of the campaign was “annexation and displacement”, and called for Arab and international pressure on Washington to halt Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank as well as Gaza.

Israeli attacks in the West Bank have intensified since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, according to Wafa. About 750,000 Israeli settlers live in 156 illegal settlements and 360 illegal outposts across the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.

The UN recognises Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory as illegal under international law.