A settler from Migdalim riots in Kusra and threatens: I will kill anyone who keeps my mouth shut
As we have done every week recently, we took Maryam to the eye hospital in Turmus Ayya to get injections in her eyes to save her sight. Maryam is very ill (serious diabetes and issues with her heart and kidney). She is 58 and functions like a 98-year-old. She can hardly stand, walks with a stick, and needs to be supported. This time we asked her husband (who is ill himself) to join us and stay with her during treatment and, most importantly, to wait with her for her appointment. We arranged with the taxi driver that he would take them back to Fasa’il after the injection and we paid him in advance. Since she needs injections week after week and there is a very long wait for the injections, I can’t be there every time. When we arrived, there were already about 40 people waiting for injections and we were glad we’d made our “arrangement.” We introduced the taxi driver to Mussa, Maryam’s husband, and the driver immediately invited us to coffee at the café opposite the hospital and wanted to give us something to eat as well, while he waved aside the other people in the café, who also wanted to invite us to their tables.
The driver told us about the repeated attacks by the settlers from Shiloh and the neighboring Ali – all with the backing of the army.
With Fathiya’s directions, we drove to Qusra to hear about the latest attack. Since the entrance gate to the village was locked, we parked the car beside it and went in on foot. A small group of children were playing next to the gate, jumping over and under it and … we weren’t allowed to take pictures of them. To the children’s delight, there had been a light snowfall and of course it was terribly cold. The children asked us where we were going and we said to the grocery, and they quickly ran to warn the owner about the Jewish women.
The owner told us that a week ago, the army had come to the village in the middle of the night. The solders entered the mosque and people’s houses and turned everything upside down and terrorized the entire village. He said that the guard from Migdalim comes to the village often and threatens to shoot and kill anyone who disobeys him. He often alerts his friends from Migdalim (which used to be a “moderate” settlement) and together with holy fire, they perpetrate a pogrom in the village.
That’s the reality of life in every Palestinian village today, on top of hunger and shortages due to the eighteen-month ban on entry into Israel and the prohibition of traffic on the roads, which prevents any form of commerce or local economy.
On the way back, we went into the illegal outpost Evyatar and were amazed to see how much it has grown. We saw some 30 buildings, children’s playgrounds, overflowing garbage containers, and a stable with a horse inside. No longer a small, irrelevant settlement.
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Location Description
Jordan Valley
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Jordan Valley The Jordan Valley is the eastern strip of the West Bank. Its area consists of almost a third of the West Bank area. About 10,000 settlers live there, about 65,000 Palestinian residents in the villages and towns. In addition, about 15,000 are scattered in small shepherd communities. These communities are living in severe distress because of two types of harassment: the military declaring some of their living areas, as fire zones, evicting them for long hours from their residence to the scorching heat of the summer and the bitter cold of the winter. The other type is abuse by rioters who cling to the grazing areas of the shepherd communities, and the declared fire areas (without being deported). The many groundwaters in the Jordan Valley belong to Mekorot and are not available to Palestinians living in the Jordan Valley. The Palestinians bring water to their needs in high-cost followers.
Mahdi DrarmaMar-14-2025Al Burj: destruction of a family home
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Qusra
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Qusra
This village is located in the Nablus district, about 28 kilometers south-east of the city. Its population numbers 4,310 as of 2007 (according to the Palestinian census). After the Oslo Accords, 50% - most of the village’s built-up area – was categorized Area B, and about 70 homes as well as the rest of its land are inside Area C.
In 1983, 177 dunams of the village lands were confiscated by Israel to build a ‘Nahal’ stronghold, turned civilian in 1985 and named Migdalim settler-colony, east of the village itself. To the north-east is a gas station and a leather plant, as well as a studio producing wood ware, all of which are a branch of the settler-colony. Dozens of additional farmland were confiscated from Qussra and Jaloud in order to erect the settler-colonies Esh Qodesh and Ahiya.
“The villagers point to the settler-colonists of Esh Qodesh as the source of their problem. Qussra villagers were forbidden to tend their lands located a kilometer away from the Esh Qodesh fence, and about 20 meters from the area declared military zone. What about the ‘legitimate’ plots? Their crops are regularly destroyed by the settler-colonists. Fires break out in wheat fields, olive trees are cut down, wells are destroyed – these have all become routine events. In spite of all of this, the head of the local council sees the Israeli army as the main source. He says that the settler-colonists could not have harassed the villagers without the army backing them up…”
(From a MW report, August 3, 2015)
In 2001, the Israeli army evacuated its intelligence base “Kida”. In 2003, the settler outpost Kida was established, a quick attempt was made to evict the newcomers, but they were eventually allowed to remain.
For further information: http://vprofile.arij.org/nablus/pdfs/vprofile/Qusra_vp_en.pdf
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Turmus Aya
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Turmus Aya is a beautiful and well-kept Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bira governorate, located in the Shiloh Valley, about 22 km north of Ramallah. Near Highway 60 at an altitude of about 732 m. In 2016, 4,781 residents lived in the town. After the 2nd intifada in 2001, hundreds immigrated to the US, but they come in the summer to visit their families and live in the nice houses they built.
Israel expropriated 752 dunams of the town's land for the establishment of the Shiloh settlement, in 1978, and another 372 dunams for the establishment of the Shebot Rachel settlement in 1992. According to the Oslo Agreement, the built-up area of TAos Aya was classified as area B. This area constitutes 64.7% of the town's land, and the rest, 35.3%, is area C.
Starting in 2015, the town's residents often suffer from harassment from the settlers of the Adi Ad outpost, which include the uprooting and cutting of olive trees, the burning of wheat fields and the spraying of anti-Netzka inscriptions.
On June 21, 2023, dozens of young people from outposts and surrounding settlements carried out a pogrom in broad daylight after the funeral of the victims of the attack that occurred two days earlier at the gas station in the settlement of Eli. The attack took place after the Israel Defense Forces' invasion of Jenin and the killing of innocents in the process - an invasion that took place after a previous event... and so on, deep into the non-stop blood equation that is always presented in Israel as terror attacks without context. They set fire to about 60 cars and about 30 houses with their occupants and threw stones, fire grenades and even shot from guns.The IDF soldiers watched the attack but didn't intervene. A villager was killed by soldier fire. Only 3 settlers were arrested after a few days, but charges have not yet been filed against them.
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