Qusra Mayor Says Settlers' Siege of West Bank Village Enters 21st Day as Israeli Forces Block Wounded From Leaving

Homes in the West Bank village of Qusra have been under siege by Israeli settlers for 21 consecutive days, according to Mayor Abdul Azim Wadi, who said the blockade shows no sign of lifting.

Wadi told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli forces are attempting to arrest Palestinians who remain trapped inside their besieged houses. He said the military is also preventing the evacuation of wounded residents from a house in the village's Ras al-Ein area, where people have reportedly been surrounded for days.

"Israeli forces are also attempting to arrest Palestinians besieged inside their homes in the village," Wadi said, according to the report.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said separately that settlers attacked an ambulance as it tried to reach the besieged house in Ras al-Ein. The organization did not detail injuries to medical personnel or provide a timestamp for the attack in the material reviewed.

No Israeli military or police statement addressing the siege, the alleged arrest attempts, or the reported ambulance attack was available in the source record. The claims rest on the mayor's account and the Red Crescent's statement, both on-the-record but not independently corroborated by footage or third-party witnesses in the material reviewed.

If accurate, a three-week blockade that blocks medical evacuation and obstructs ambulances would extend a pattern Occupation Watch has tracked across the West Bank this year: settler encirclement of Palestinian villages accompanied by military presence that residents and local officials describe as enabling rather than restraining the siege. Qusra, located south of Nablus, has been the site of repeated settler attacks and confrontations in recent years.

The specifics that would normally test such an allegation, video of the ambulance incident, IDF comment on the arrest attempts, or details on the condition of the wounded in Ras al-Ein, are absent from the reporting reviewed. Occupation Watch is continuing to seek independent confirmation of the siege's duration and the alleged obstruction of medical access.