By Deborah Danan
TEL AVIV — The West Bank settlement movement’s leadership joined with one of its most prominent defenders, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, in condemning an Israeli settler outpost set up in a Palestinian family’s yard.
Huckabee’s remarks are a signal of the degree to which a group of radicals is rattling Israeli politics, encouraging Israel’s enemies and affecting the US-Israel relationship.
Israelis affiliated with the West Bank’s Tel Talpiot outpost, which is illegal under Israeli law, set up temporary structures at the entrances to Palestinian homes on the outskirts of the village of Qusra.
Earlier in the week, cables connecting the homes to the electricity grid and to solar panels were cut and water pipes were damaged, leaving the Palestinian families unable to leave or bring in food.
Critics of Israeli settlements who monitor settler attacks on Palestinians confirmed the account to JTA.
Huckabee wrote on X on Aug. 13 that Israeli forces had gone to Qusra at the US Embassy’s request and described the people who set up the outpost as “Israeli terrorists.”
He posted that “the IDF & Israel Police have gone at our request to remove the Israeli terrorists doing this.”
Huckabee’s intervention suggests Trump wants the violence to end
The language was a departure for the ambassador, who told Israel’s Channel 14 last September that the US “respects Israel as a sovereign state and will not tell Israel what to do” regarding sovereignty in the West Bank.
Huckabee also consistently describes the territory by its biblical names Judea and Samaria.
He routinely takes to social media to dismantle what he says are lies depicting Israelis as unfairly treating Palestinians.
He has condemned settler violence before, but has rarely done so in language as blunt as what he used on Aug. 13.
In July, 2025, he visited the Christian village of Taybeh in the West Bank after an arson attack at its fifth-century church and called it an “act of terror and crime.”
The actions of Israeli settler extremists have been a major concern to Democrats in the US Congress in recent months, adding fodder to their calls to condition mililtary aid to Israel on its behavior.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists the reports are overblown, and that Palestinian violence against Israeli communities on the West Bank is much more serious.
President Donald Trump, who has often supported Netanyahu, has called on the prime minister to crack down on the violence in the West Bank, seeing it as an impediment to his hopes for a broader Middle East peace.
Huckabee’s intervention suggests that the Trump administration is increasingly concerned about ending the violence.
Yesha Council condemns the outpost
Yisrael Ganz, who chairs the Yesha Council and governs the Binyamin Regional Council in the West Bank, condemned the outpost.
“The events in Qusra are serious and do not reflect our values or our way of conducting ourselves,” Ganz said.
“There is no place for individuals to take matters into their own hands and establish an outpost in someone’s backyard, even when dealing with an illegal home or an attempt to seize control of the land.
“There is no justification whatsoever for violence against uninvolved civilians or security forces.”
He added that some were “exploiting these events as part of a campaign against the Jewish communities,” but that this “must not obscure the simple truth: What happened in Qusra was wrong and is unacceptable to us.”
Huckabee amplified Ganz’s statement later on Aug. 13, writing on X, “‘Settlers’ are not the problem in Judea/Samaria. ‘Unsettlers’ are,” he wrote, describing them as “very small minority who do great damage to Palestinian families & to Israel.”
Qusra is located in Area B, territory that is under the civil jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority and security control of the Israeli military and where Israeli settlement is not permitted.
The Israel Defense Forces called such takeovers illegal and reprehensible.
Overnight Aug. 12, Israeli security forces said they demolished the structures at Qusra and detained one Israeli.
Marmar Odeh, a village representative, told JTA, “I won’t be going anywhere. I am staying in my house and on my land. I may not be scared, but the children are all the time.”
In a voice memo recorded on Aug. 12 and obtained by JTA, Aisha Abu Rida, a Qusra resident, spoke from inside one of the besieged homes. “We are surrounded by settlers, but we are steadfast,” she said. “Despite the water and electricity being cut off, we will remain steadfast . . . and stay in our homes.”
Toledo, Ohio resident owns a home in Qusra
By Aug. 13, the structures were gone, but settlers remained on the hillsides above the homes, Odeh said, an account that he supported with footage he supplied to JTA.
Soldiers had left most of the homes they had entered, residents said Aug. 14, but were informed the military operation could last until Aug. 16.
One of the affected homes belongs to Loui Ridi, a Toledo, Ohio, business owner who was born in Qusra and has followed the standoff through security cameras installed at the property.
JTA attempted to reach Ridi through several channels and was unsuccessful.
Asked whether the State Dept.shared Huckabee’s characterization and whether the Israeli Embassy had requested the Israeli operation, a State Dept. spokesperson did not directly reply.
“We are in regular dialogue with partners about improving stability and security in the West Bank,” the spokesperson said.
“We condemn criminal violence by any party in the West Bank.
“A stable West Bank keeps Israel secure and is in line with this administration’s goal to achieve peace in the region.”
Did IDF soldiers pray alongside settlers at the outpost?
In a statement to JTA, the IDF said soldiers had been deployed in Qusra since Aug. 13 morning “to protect the residents and maintain security in the area” and that they had been instructed that “the Qusra residents will remain in their homes.”
It added that troops would not operate inside the Palestinian family’s home near the site “where the tent that was evacuated and dismantled had been erected” and said Civil Administration liaison officers were in contact with Qusra’s local leadership and “working to avoid disruption to the daily lives of the residents in the area.”
Footage circulating earlier in the week appeared to show Israeli soldiers praying alongside the settlers at the outpost.
The military said that the incident is under review and that soldiers found to have taken part in illegal activity would be disciplined.
Who has authority to remove illegal outposts?
The designation of Area B is the source of the ambiguity, according to Hanan Greenwood, head of the spokesperson and public diplomacy unit at the Binyamin Regional Council.
The council’s jurisdiction covers the Jewish settlements themselves, Greenwood said, not Area B land, meaning that Qusra sits inside the council’s footprint but outside its authority.
Its residents fall under Palestinian Authority civil jurisdiction and do not pay arnona, the Israeli municipal tax, to the Binyamin council.
“Geographically, Qusra is very much in our area,” Greenwood said. “But in real life, it’s not that we could go there.”
He described the result as a governance vacuum.
“It’s ours, it isn’t ours,” he said. “It’s a whole mess, and the reason is that there’s no sovereignty.”
Other Israeli groups argue that the IDF does have the authority to remove outposts and does not use it.
Says Yuli Novak, B’Tselem’s executive director:
“Settler militias, backed by the Israeli military, are expanding their attacks into Palestinian villages and towns, seizing land, attacking homes and forcing families out.”
