Monday, August 17, 2026

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

UN Special Rapporteur Albanese warns that Israel is ‘using settlers to advance ethnic cleansing’ in the West Bank.

An Israeli soldier stands by as Palestinian residents take photos from the veranda of their family home beseige by Israeli settlers in the village of Qusra, south of the city Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on August 14, 2026, nearly a week after the settlers began blockading Palestinian homes defying attempts by the Israeli military to remove them. — An Israeli soldier stands near a Palestinian home besieged by Israeli settlers in the village of Qusra, south of the city of Nablus, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank [File: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP]

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.

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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.