By Pesha Magid, Ammar Awad and Sinan Abu Mayzer
QUSRA, West Bank, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Palestinian American Loui Ridi raised a giant American flag over his West Bank home, hoping it might deter militant settlers besieging the property. But it wasn’t enough to stop one of them from walking onto Ridi’s land on Tuesday, during a tense face-off.
Ridi arrived in Qusra late on Monday after traveling from the U.S., fearing he could lose the property to Jewish settlers who have encircled three Palestinian homes in the village for more than a week, prompting U.S. condemnation.
Ridi, who grew up in the village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was taking a morning walk among his cherry and fig trees on Tuesday when a settler approached from the hill above, in an encounter filmed by Reuters, the only media outlet present.
“You came to make a mess, ha?” the settler said in Hebrew as he approached, holding what appeared to be a Torah in one hand and filming Ridi with a mobile phone.
“You are a terrorist settler, you know that?” Ridi said, also filming with his mobile.
An Israeli military vehicle drove by a few times before soldiers approached and spoke to the settler, telling him it’s a closed military area.
“I’ll leave if they leave. There are a lot of guys here. We’re all just guarding our territory. If they go inside the house, we’ll leave,” the settler told the soldiers.
The settler eventually retreated up the road before he was joined by two more settlers, and did not respond to a question from Reuters on what he was doing there. Eventually they ambled up the hill and out of sight.
“Just be inside, they go and you’ll be inside. Don’t talk to each other, ok? I’ll solve this problem,” an Israeli soldier told Ridi, instructing him to enter his home.
Ridi told the soldiers the settler’s presence was illegal and he should be arrested.
The confrontation captured tensions in the village where settlers began besieging the homes more than a week ago, part of what rights groups say is a wider effort by settlers to seize more land from Palestinians, further eating into territory where they aim to establish a state.
RAISING THE U.S. FLAG
The Israeli military has said it has deployed forces in the area to try to rein in the settlers and maintain security for residents.
But with settlers still outside, the families are afraid to leave their homes. Ridi hoisted the U.S. flag over his property after arriving.
“I decided I want to raise this flag. If, God forbid, I’m unable to protect this house and the settlers end up here, they’re going to raise (their) flag. But before they raise their flag, they have to move the American flag, and that’s the message.”
Violence by Jewish settlers in the West Bank has been on the rise, some emboldened by the government of right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has spearheaded a massive settlement expansion.
One of Ridi’s neighbours, Ibrahim Hassan, who like the vast majority of Palestinians does not hold U.S. citizenship, told Reuters he was forced to flee his home last month after settlers accompanied by men in green military garb smashed the windows of his home, entered, and beat him.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
FLAG ‘A FORM OF PROTECTION’
U.S. officials have estimated that tens of thousands of Americans live in the occupied West Bank, many of them in a cluster of villages between Ramallah and Nablus, where Qusra lies.
In the nearby village of Turmus Ayya, about 7 km (4.3 miles) southwest of Qusra, local officials say that 80% of the town’s population holds U.S. citizenship.
Yaser Alkam, 58, a spokesman for the village’s Palestinian American community, said there were a number of reasons why he and many others in the village fly American flags over their houses.
“It’s a form of security, a form of protection. It provides deterrence not only to the settlers but also to the IDF,” he said.
He also said it sent a direct message to the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“Here’s an American citizen being attacked in the West Bank by an American tax-funded army, American weapons used to attack Palestinian Americans in the West Bank,” Alkam said.
The U.S. Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee — a strong supporter of Jewish settlement in the West Bank — on Thursday condemned settlers besieging Ridi’s home as “Israeli terrorists”.
A U.S. official and an Israeli official said on Friday White House officials are pressing Netanyahu to publicly condemn the settlers’ actions.
Netanyahu has not commented on the siege in Qusra.
(Additional reporting by Rami Ayyub; Writing by Tom Perry, Editing by William Maclean)
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