US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has branded the Israeli settlers besieging two Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra "Israeli terrorists," a rare and pointed condemnation from a diplomat who has spent his career defending the settlement enterprise. Huckabee said the US Embassy in Jerusalem had asked Israeli security forces to remove the settlers and described their actions against the families as criminal.
The remarks are notable coming from Huckabee, one of the most openly pro-settlement figures ever to hold the post, who has frequently toured settlements in the occupied West Bank and refuses to use the term "West Bank," instead calling the territory by the biblical name Israel deploys to justify its claim to it. For such a figure to publicly label Israeli settlers as terrorists marks an unusual breaking point.
The condemnation centers on the siege of Qusra, south of Nablus, where armed settlers laid siege to the homes of two Palestinian families in what has become a chillingly effective method of forced displacement. The tactic is simple and brutal: settlers surround a Palestinian family's home, erect a tent or structure at the door, and cut off food, water, medicine, and movement, starving the family out until they abandon the property. Once the residents flee, the settlers move in and seize the home. Throughout, the siege is carried out under the protection of Israeli occupation forces, who seal the area, turn away anyone trying to help, and leave the families trapped.
The siege in Qusra began on Sunday, when settlers from a nearby outpost blocked the families inside their homes and cut their access to supplies. One of the families includes an American citizen, which drew the unusual attention of the Trump administration. Huckabee disputed a Palestinian-American activist's account that the White House had intervened, insisting instead that the embassy itself had been deeply involved and had kept Washington informed.
Israel claimed it had launched an operation to remove the settlers from the area. On the ground, according to local reports, the reality is the opposite. Rather than lifting the siege, Israeli occupation forces raided Qusra, forced still more Palestinian families out of their homes, and informed residents to prepare to leave the area within days. The Israeli occupation forces declared the village a closed military zone and made a token attempt to remove the settlers on Wednesday, but withdrew after settlers resisted and dozens of their supporters arrived. The settlers' tent was removed, yet they remained around the homes and the siege continued, with food and medicine still blocked.
Huckabee's condemnation is the latest in a series of moments in which even Israel's most reliable American backers have shown visible frustration with its conduct. In July 2025, after the Palestinian-American Sayfollah Musallet was beaten to death by settlers in the occupied West Bank, Huckabee called the killing a criminal and terrorist act and demanded an aggressive Israeli investigation. Around the same time, he threatened to instruct the US consular section to consider reciprocal visa restrictions on Israelis after Israel repeatedly denied entry to American Christian groups, warning that Washington might publicly declare that Israel no longer welcomes Christians. That friction has run alongside repeated incidents of Israeli settlers spitting on and assaulting Christian clergy and pilgrims in occupied Jerusalem, attacks the Armenian Patriarchate and others have demanded be treated as hate crimes, with little action from an Israeli government whose own national security minister has dismissed such assaults as beneath prosecution.
