Dozens of Israeli settlers descended on the Palestinian village of Qusra in the northern occupied West Bank on Saturday, throwing stones at residents and barricading themselves inside a Palestinian home while residents remained inside. The attack, the latest in nearly three weeks of escalating tension in the area, drew a rare public condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called the acts "criminal" and pledged that those responsible would face justice.

Qusra, a village near the city of Nablus, has been the focal point of settler activity since earlier in August, when a group of settlers began blockading supplies to homes on the village's outskirts, trapping residents — including children — inside for days and cutting off water and electricity. Saturday's violence followed that siege, with settlers returning in larger numbers. A resident, Yussef Abdul Kareem Hassan, described how a small group of settlers approached Palestinians working on a house, called for reinforcements, and returned with dozens more who surrounded those inside and pelted them with stones. In the nearby village of Jalud, masked settlers also attacked a Palestinian woman and a foreign television crew accompanying her. The Palestinian Red Crescent reported that settlers attempted to block an ambulance from reaching the wounded.

The Israeli military confirmed it had deployed soldiers and border police after reports of violent clashes, and said forces found dozens of settlers barricaded inside a Palestinian home. Troops worked to remove the settlers, separate the groups, and confiscate vehicles suspected of having been used to reach the area. However, witnesses told reporters that soldiers fired tear gas inside the Palestinian home, injuring a woman, and that several Palestinian residents were briefly detained and bound before being released — while no settlers were arrested at the scene. The army said a police investigation had been opened.

Netanyahu's condemnation, described by observers as unusually strong, denounced "criminal acts of violence committed by a handful of rioters who are violating the law, causing grave injustice to the law-abiding Jewish community, interfering with the IDF in carrying out its missions, and harming Israel's standing in the world." Israeli President Isaac Herzog also condemned the attack, calling it "a red line crossed" and "a stain on Israel's forehead," and urged the government, security forces, and judiciary to use all available means to bring those responsible to justice. The United States, which had earlier pressed Netanyahu to speak out after its ambassador issued unusually sharp criticism of the earlier siege, had reportedly pushed the Israeli government to publicly condemn the settler actions.

The violence fits a broader and worsening pattern. More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements across the West Bank — which Israel has occupied since 1967 — among approximately three million Palestinians. The settlements are considered illegal under international law. UN monitoring body OCHA recorded more than a thousand settler incidents in the West Bank by early July, averaging six per day. Rights groups and a June UN inquiry concluded that Israeli authorities bear direct responsibility for enabling settler attacks that have killed, injured, and displaced Palestinians. Since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, at least 1,103 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers, while Israeli figures show at least 48 Israelis killed in Palestinian attacks or military operations during the same period. Critics argue that Saturday's events — and the weeks of siege that preceded them — reflect a systematic effort to seize Palestinian land and shrink the territory Palestinians hope will form a future state.