Israeli Press
Israel's army tells Ynet it knows of no violence at Qusra
Graphic: Times of Palestine
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On the same weekend Israel's prime minister condemned "criminal acts of violence" at Qusra, the army told the Israeli news site Ynet it was not aware of any.
Both positions ran within hours of each other. The gap between them is the story.
Ynet published on Sunday an interview with a Palestinian homeowner from the Ras al-Ain area west of Qusra, who had come to do building work on his house on Saturday when settlers arrived. Al Jazeera, which reported him among the wounded, gives his name as Loai al-Bairoty.
"They surrounded us and threw stones," he told the site. Seven Palestinians were put into a single military vehicle, he said, held there for two to three hours, then driven to the village of Duma and released bound and blindfolded.
He said an officer spoke to him before that.
Don't come to this house again. Next time we won't come to arrest you, we'll come to destroy it.
An Israeli officer, quoted by the Qusra homeowner to Ynet, 30 August 2026
What the military spokesman answered#
Ynet carried the army's reply in full. During operations in Qusra on Saturday, it said, after Israeli rioters fled the area, forces detained several Palestinians who had remained and were identified as stone-throwers. One resisted, the statement said, and proportionate force was used.
Its closing line: no allegations of violence are known.
A closed zone that closes one way#
Residents told Ynet that settlers continue to move through the area although the army declared it a closed military zone after the clashes, and described settlers arriving with tractors and spending some fifty minutes beside the cordoned houses.
That cordon is now three weeks old. Three families have been besieged at Ras al-Ain since early August — the households of the brothers Rizq and Yousef Hasan and of Qusai Abu Rida — and the owner of the house at the centre of Saturday's attack, Loui Abd al-Munim Abu Rida, holds American citizenship and returned from the United States to a home under siege.
Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that he strongly condemned the acts at Qusra and the neighbouring village of Jalud, committed by what he called a handful of rioters violating the law and harming Israel's standing in the world. Israel's foreign ministry called the same violence disgraceful and criminal.
The army spokesman, answering about the same village on the same weekend, said nothing of the kind was known to him.
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