Israeli Press
Huckabee says Washington asked Israel to remove the settlers besieging Qusra
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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The United States asked Israel to clear the settlers who had sealed Palestinian families inside their homes at Qusra, and the American ambassador called those settlers terrorists.
"The IDF and police came at our request to remove the Israeli terrorists doing this," Mike Huckabee said in remarks the Israeli news site Ynet reported on Thursday morning. "These acts are reprehensible — there is no excuse for such bullying behaviour."
Huckabee has been among the most consistently pro-Israel appointments of this American administration, which is precisely what gave the word its weight in Israel.
Large Israeli forces reached the village, south-east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, during the night and took down the structure settlers had raised in front of the houses. Abdelazim Wadi, who heads the Qusra local council, said the troops were still in the area and that residents had been told to avoid unnecessary vehicle movement.
The settlers came back. They blocked the access roads with heavy rocks, and an activist from the hilltop settler youth complained that the soldiers had wrecked the site and seized whatever they found.
The military called the outpost and the siege illegal, reprehensible and unacceptable, and closed the area. The chief of staff, Eyal Zamir, ordered another battalion into the sector and disciplinary steps against the soldiers filmed there.
Three households had been cut off since Sunday, their electricity lines severed and their food blocked at the road.
