Beit Furik – under attack like Qusra, like Umm Al Khair or…

JVL Introduction

People in the West have been horrified by the settler violence and have shown sympathy for the besieged Palestinian families in the West Bank village of Qusra. We are pleased that the legacy media has been covering this atrocity, see, eg The Guardian, (the BBC had a piece that seems to have been removed). Even Mike Huckabee called Israeli settlers ‘terrorists’  in this case. A situation that Israel seems unable to stop it and today (15th August 2026) The Times of Israel reported that Settlers again arrive at besieged home in Qusra.

The brief report says that “A group of more than a dozen Israeli settlers arrived this afternoon at the entrance to a Palestinian home in the West Bank village of Qusra…The home has been under siege by settlers for several days, despite Israeli authorities dismantling an outpost they established in the area and bolstering forces in the village. According to the military, troops were dispatched to the scene, and the settlers then left the village of their own accord. There were no arrests.” (my emph LL)

This article is not about Qusra, which deserves every bit of the coverage it is getting, this is about Beit Furik, near Nablus. It could have been about Tell also near Nablus or  Zanuta or Yanoun, ethnically cleansed after years of pressure or about Umm al-Khair, where attacks continue on a near daily basis even though village resident and activist Awdah Hathaleen was murdered by a settler just over a year ago and even the Jerusalem Post created this short video showing how unjustly the murder was treated by the Israeli Military. (After the murder, several Palestinians were arrested and held for longer than the armed settler who was filmed shooting Awdah)

The article could, indeed, have been about any Palestinian village in any part of the West Bank but it focuses on an event in Beit Furik where the appalling attacks on people from the village resulted in the Israeli police labelling the events as a Palestinian terror attack. Of course when the IDF arrived, the whole area was declared a “closed military zone”. One of the farmers affected said: “…the officer aimed his rifle at him and threatened that if he did not leave immediately with the combine, the army would call in the settlers. A few minutes later, settlers arrived aboard an all-terrain vehicle. The Palestinians decided to back off.” Two men from the village were killed and Israeli soldiers placed the two victims’ bodies in black plastic bags and removed them from the scene.

The government and legacy media like to refer to “extremist” settlers but they are backed by the institutions of the State. On this occasion when one of the farmers tried to explain to the Army officer that this was his land, the latter retorted, “You don’t have land here. This land belongs to the State of Israel.”

Do check the original for photographs that we do not have specific permission to reproduce.

This article was originally published by Ha'aretz on Sat 15 Aug 2026. Read the original here.