QUSRA/GAZA CITY: The Israeli military said on Wednesday it would send more troops to try to impose order on defiant settlers after failing to end their blockade of Palestinians’ homes in the occupied West Bank.
The siege began on Sunday, when a group of settlers set up a makeshift tent near houses in the Palestinian village of Qusra, just south of Nablus, blocking essential supplies from entering.
“We have received no food and no medicine,” Qusai Abu Rida, a Palestinian trapped inside one of the houses, said, adding that he had only managed to secure electricity thanks to solar panels.
The Israeli military condemned the settlers’ actions and declared the area a “closed military zone”, removing their tent on Wednesday morning. But by mid-afternoon, a photographer at the scene said the military had left and the tent had been removed, but that the settlers were still there. Abu Rida said the settlers had chairs and blankets.
One killed in first Gaza strike in more than one week
“The army has withdrawn, and so far we are still besieged, with the settlers at our doorstep,” he said. The military announced that it would send an additional infantry battalion and that more soldiers would be on standby.
The chief of the general staff “directed that efforts to strengthen order and operational control in the area continue, as well as efforts to prevent further serious incidents”, a military statement said.
The Israeli military a day earlier said it had received reports of settlers entering and taking control of Palestinian homes and land in the area. “This is illegal, reprehensible and unacceptable activity that harms the residents of the areas and disrupts their daily lives,” it said. It also said that disciplinary action would be taken against security personnel who had been filmed at the site days earlier.
Violence by Israeli settlers towards Palestinians in the West Bank has persisted for years, often with little or no legal consequence, but recent months have seen a surge in attacks.
Gaza strike
Israel on Wednesday carried out its first air strike in more than a week in Gaza, both sides said, breaking a relative lull as the United States pressed a peace plan. The Israeli military said it targeted a Hamas commander, charging that he had been planning attacks against Israeli forces operating in the war-battered territory.
“The terrorist was struck in an aerial strike in order to remove the threat to IDF troops,” a military statement said, adding that it tried to mitigate civilian harm.
Gaza’s civil defence agency, a rescue service under Hamas, said the strike in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip targeted civilians riding in a tuk-tuk. The strike killed Mohanad Saada, whose body was “torn to pieces”, and wounded five other people, according to the civil defence agency and Al-Shifa Hospital.
A witness said Saada was among a group of workers who were repairing a wall damaged by Israeli shelling.
“It is true that Israeli airstrikes and assassinations had almost completely ceased for over a week, but today the occupation resumed its aerial bombardment,” civil defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said.
Hamas had announced that it would disarm by giving its weapons to a nascent Palestinian governing committee. Trump’s “Board of Peace”, in charge of implementing the ceasefire deal, had initially announced that Israel in turn would start a phased withdrawal from much of the Gaza Strip.
Published in Dawn, August 13th, 2026