Israel moves to hand settler policing to the police as a West Bank siege enters its sixth day

Six days at Qusra

Israeli settlers have blockaded three Palestinian homes in Qusra, a village south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, since Sunday [2]. About 15 people are trapped inside, including two children, cut off from water and electricity [4]. On Friday settlers put up a tent outside one of the houses. Soldiers arrived and it came down [2].

The army did not remove the settlers. Instead it forced one Palestinian family out of its home, saying it needed the house as a base for the operation against the settlers [1]. The commander of Israeli forces in the West Bank, General Avi Bluth, visited Qusra twice. Two days earlier he had told residents the army would clear the settlers out [1].

That failure produced the day’s real news. Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, ordered the military to draw up plans to transfer law enforcement over Israeli settlers from the army to the civilian police [1]. Palestine’s vice-president, Hussein al-Sheikh, called it a flagrant violation of international law and a step towards full annexation [1].

Michael Sfard, a leading Israeli human rights lawyer, put the legal point plainly. The military can hand over enforcement, he said, but not responsibility. A framework that moves both to the police “would be another brick, a very major one, of annexation” [1]. He also noted that Israel could legally widen police powers under the existing occupation rules, and that Katz’s statement carried no detail. It may be politics rather than policy [1].

What Washington said, and what it wants next

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called the settlers besieging the homes “Israeli terrorists” [3]. Huckabee is a long-standing supporter of Israeli settlement, which makes the wording remarkable. US officials have condemned settler violence in general terms for years. They have not used that word [3].

Behind the scenes the White House is pressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to condemn the violence publicly, according to a US official and an Israeli official [4]. Washington’s concern sharpened after it learned one of the besieged homes belongs to a Palestinian American [4].

Netanyahu is months from a national election, set for October [1]. Parts of his coalition depend on settler support, so a public condemnation carries a cost at home [4]. For anyone tracking this, the thing to watch is not the statement but the paperwork: whether Katz’s order becomes a written legal instrument, or stays a line delivered under pressure.

The slower story underneath

Qusra is one week. The pattern around it is years old and mostly arrives in pieces too small to make the news.

On Thursday Katz attended a ceremony at Ganim, a settlement Israel evacuated in 2005 under Ariel Sharon. Two dozen prefabricated homes are already installed and the hillside is being levelled for more. “Here, this is the land of Israel. Here, we are staying forever,” Katz said [1]. On the road to it, the army had levelled Palestinian property and blocked access roads with rubble [1].

Water is going the same way. In Fasayil, in the Jordan Valley, settlers seized the freshwater spring that irrigated Saad Nemer’s fields in June [6]. They diverted it into an ancient pool, now advertised as a tourist attraction [6]. His greenhouses would normally be full of aubergine, courgette and watermelon. He has not been able to plant [6]. A Palestinian field researcher, Fares Foqahaa, estimates settlers now control about 95% of the springs in the northern Jordan Valley [6]. UN data records at least 160 attacks on water and sanitation sites across the territory this year [6].

The displacement adds up. Since October 2023 Israel has forcibly displaced 64 whole Palestinian communities and parts of 15 more, affecting nearly 5,000 people, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem [1].

Yair Dvir of B’Tselem described the rhythm: when international criticism arrives, the government condemns the violence, the settlers withdraw, and they return once attention shifts [5]. Aida Touma-Sliman, an Israeli member of parliament for the left-wing Hadash party, put it more bluntly. “They can say what they want, but they’re complicit” [5]. UN monitoring shows settler violence rising as the October vote approaches [5].

Ukraine takes ground back, and cannot stop the sky

Ukraine declared the end of a counteroffensive in the southern Dnipropetrovsk region, saying it had recaptured 745 square kilometres this year and liberated 26 settlements [7]. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank that maps control from geolocated open-source images, put the figure more conservatively at 627 square kilometres [7]. Across the whole front, it assessed Russia has lost a net 233 square kilometres this year [7].

Russia paid heavily for its own attacks. It suffered a reported 39,000 casualties in June and nearly 43,000 in July, its worst months since January 2025 [7]. A large part of that is drones. Ukraine now fields 16 short-range attack drones for every 10 Russian ones [7]. Those drones caused more than 70% of Russian casualties across the two months [7].

The air is the other story. Ukraine’s Patriot interceptor stocks are exhausted, leaving cities increasingly exposed [7]. Combined drone and missile strikes hit Kyiv, Odesa and Zaporizhzhia this month, killing at least nine people [7]. A Russian strike on Kramatorsk killed two and injured 17 [8]. Ukraine hit a Russian oil port in return [8], and Russia has now admitted fresh petrol shortages caused by long-range Ukrainian strikes [9].

A strait almost nobody is using

Transit through the Strait of Hormuz came to a near standstill on Friday after two more ships were attacked [11]. The UAE accused Iran of hitting two state-owned vessels [11]. The Pentagon said the US can maintain its naval blockade of Iranian ports indefinitely [11]. A senior Iranian source said there had been no progress in talks to build on June’s agreement to end the war [11].

At a rally in New York, President Trump said he would “soon” declare the strait a US territory once Iran is defeated [10]. “We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to,” he said [10]. He asked Americans to accept slightly higher petrol prices as the price of stopping Iran getting a nuclear weapon [10]. Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar all condemned the strikes and demanded an unconditional return to free navigation [10]. Separately, a Houthi attack on the Yemeni port city of Mocha killed eight [10][12].

Washington leans on its trading partners

The US threatened action against the European Union on Friday unless Brussels softens its environmental and human rights rules [13]. Washington acknowledged “some positive reforms” but said the bloc had failed to fully address its concerns [13]. The dispute is over two laws: one requiring large companies to address human rights and environmental harm in their supply chains, the other requiring them to disclose sustainability information [13]. Brussels has already scaled both back, but has not exempted US firms [13].

Separately Trump imposed tariffs of up to 100% on drones, with a lower rate for the EU and UK [14]. The EU pushed back on the wider pressure and rejected a US claim that Brussels is helping China dodge tariffs [15]. In Brazil, President Lula triggered a reciprocity process against US tariffs [16].

The accountability that never arrives

Attacks on healthcare in conflict zones are running at more than four a day this year, the World Health Organization said in Geneva on Friday [17]. There have been over 900 attacks since January, killing at least 900 people and injuring more than 1,400 [17]. Ukraine, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territory account for the largest share [17].

One number sits underneath all of it. Of more than 10,000 attacks the WHO has verified since 2018, not one has entered an accountability process [17].

The effects outlast the attack. In Gaza all 36 hospitals have been damaged and only about half remain partly working. In Sudan 37% of health facilities are non-functional [17]. A WHO study of 69 attacks in northwest Syria found outpatient visits fell 51% straight after an attack and stayed low for over a month [17]. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, 12 verified attacks since May have disrupted the response to an Ebola outbreak [17].

That outbreak is now in a sixth province and closing on Kinshasa, a city of 19 million [18]. It has caused more than 4,300 cases and 2,000 deaths so far, and is driven by the rare Bundibugyo strain, for which no vaccine or treatment is approved [18]. The WHO expects it to peak in about six months [18].

Elsewhere, more than 650,000 refugees and asylum seekers in South Sudan may lose food aid within weeks [19]. The World Food Programme needs $37 million to cover October to December [19]. More than 7.8 million people there, over half the population, face acute food insecurity, and 2.2 million children are acutely malnourished [19]. Some refugees are already going back to Sudan’s war to look for help [19].