How US Gangs Smuggle Drugs Into Canada

We know the US smuggles guns to Latin American drug gangs who then smuggle drugs into the US. For decades, it's been a very successful joint venture between illicit drug manufacturers in Latin America and weapons manufacturers in the United States. The ONLY driver for this successful enterprise is ADDICTION BY WHITE AMERICANS TO COCAINE, HEROIN AND SUCH. The bulk of these consumers of illicit drugs in the US are affluent, white collar, Wall Street-types with money whose use of illicit drugs is "cool" while causing the death of millions of people as a result of the arms-for-drugs trade between North and Central-Latin America.

Below is one instance, one snapshot, of how illicit materials (nicotine and vapes, not drugs) that are manufactured in the US make their illegal way up to Canada. It doesn't take much more to imagine that more dangerous drugs, like cocaine and heroin, also make their way from the US into Canada,

The American so-called War on Drugs has always been to only fight the suppliers of drugs from Latin America but never to fight the US gun manufacturers who send weapons to the drug cartels who use them to destabilize the countries involved (Mexico, Colombia, etc.). Neither does the US go after the white collar American consumers who spend billions of dollars to satisfy their lifestyle-addictions to illicit drugs. Neither does the US take responsibility for stemming the flow of drugs from its territory into Canada,

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$6.6M in vapes, nicotine pouches seized from US semis entering Canada in 4 days
Phil Brink
Sat, August 15, 2026


CBSA seized nearly CA$6.6 million in nicotine products from three U.S. semis entering Canada. (Photo: CBSA)

Three U.S. semis entered Canada carrying nicotine products worth nearly $6.6 million Canadian within four days. Border officers intercepted all three loads at Ontario's Blue Water Bridge. The seizures included 61,758 vapes plus thousands of kilograms of nicotine pouches. Canada Border Services Agency confirmed the investigations remain ongoing.

The first interception occurred Aug. 7 at the Blue Water Bridge port of entry in Point Edward, Ontario. Officers seized approximately 61,758 nicotine vapes from a commercial driver arriving from the United States. CBSA valued those products at approximately CAD$2,778,177. Three days later, another major discovery followed at the same crossing.

Border personnel seized 570 kilograms of nicotine pouches from a commercial operator on Aug. 10. Authorities estimated that merchandise at CAD$835,200. Officers intercepted another pouch shipment from a separate driver that day. CBSA placed the third load's approximate value at CAD$2,983,500.
Three seizures within four days

CBSA valued the three seizures at approximately CAD$6.6 million combined. The agency has not identified any trucking companies connected with the loads. Officials also withheld shipment details, citing federal privacy law. Investigations into the cases remain ongoing.

CBSA would not disclose what triggered closer inspections of the commercial vehicles. The agency uses several risk-based indicators when deciding whether freight requires additional examination. Those reviews can lead officers to examine a shipment or investigate further. CBSA declined to provide specifics about what raised concerns in these cases.

The Blue Water Bridge connects Port Huron, Michigan, with Point Edward, Ontario. Commercial traffic makes the crossing an important freight gateway between both nations. The location has also produced several large contraband discoveries involving trucks. Recent cases there have included hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine.

Organized crime fuels enforcement concerns

CBSA views illegal nicotine and tobacco sales as a source of revenue for organized crime. Profits can strengthen criminal networks and finance other illegal operations in Canada and internationally. The agency identified that connection while discussing its broader enforcement efforts. Investigations into the three Blue Water Bridge seizures remain ongoing.

The crossing has produced major commercial smuggling cases involving other contraband. Officers intercepted 1,317 kilograms of cocaine from truck shipments there through October 2025. They also seized 349 kilograms of methamphetamine during the same reporting period. Those cases made Blue Water Bridge a recurring location for large commercial vehicle interceptions.

That activity continued into 2026 with another major drug seizure. Officers found 266.4 kilograms of suspected methamphetamine in a truck at the crossing in February. Authorities arrested the driver and transferred the case to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. RCMP later filed importation and possession for trafficking charges.

CBSA confirmed the latest nicotine products were seized with no terms of release. Investigations remain active, and authorities have not announced charges involving any commercial driver. Federal privacy restrictions prevent the agency from identifying carriers or providing additional shipment information. CBSA also withheld destinations and declared commodities. FreightWaves will update this story if authorities announce charges or release additional details about the investigations.

Three multimillion-dollar interceptions within four days show how commercial freight can become part of cross-border contraband investigations. Carriers and brokers need visibility into drivers, shipments and unusual activity moving through their networks.

FreightWaves offers Certified Fraud Compliance Officer training focused on verification, risk identification and consistent decision-making. In my opinion, stronger training can help transportation teams recognize warning signs before questionable freight enters legitimate networks. CFCO provides a structured process for knowing when additional scrutiny makes sense.

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Another example of how Americans traffick drugs and guns between Mexico and Canada: American man from Nevada smuggled 140 'military-style' rifles and guns to Mexican drug cartels

Sun, August 16, 2026

A US-born white Nevada man was charged with purchasing high-powered firearms and ammunition to sell to drug-trafficking organizations in Mexico, money laundering and employing people illegally in the U.S.

Between April 2020 and last September, Luis Alberto Osorio and accomplices bought 140 firearms, magazines, and ammunition on behalf of violent Mexican drug-trafficking cartels, which would be sold south of the border for a profit.

The guns included large caliber and long-range firearms such as the Ohio Ordnance Works M2-SLR .50 BMG, the Barrett M82A1 and M107A1 .50 BMG antimaterial rifles, the FN Herstal M249S 5.56x45mm and the FH Herstal SCAR 17S 7.62x51mm rifles.

Osorio, of Elko, Nevada, pleaded guilty to one count of straw purchasing of firearms; one count of trafficking in firearms; one count of harboring certain aliens; and one count of conspiracy to launder money.

Americans who traffick military-style firearms and ammunition to drug organizations in Mexico fuels violence strengthen criminal networks and threaten communities on both sides of the border.

"In the world of organized crime and drug trafficking, guns and drugs go hand-in-hand," David S. Olesky, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Los Angeles Field Division, which covers Nevada, said in a statement. 

In a related event, a four-door Lexus crossing the U.S. border into Mexico was found to contain a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher and dozens of additional weapons hidden in the vehicle.

Tucked in a cavity under the seats, officials found the RPG tube, four rifles, an Avtomat Kalashnikova (AK-style) pistol, 16 AK rifles, 24 rifle magazines, 16 rifle stocks, 20 pistol grips and other weapon parts in the vehicle as it attempted to cross the border at the Area Port of Nogales, near Tucson, Arizona.

While authorities note the scale of weapons smuggling across the U.S. border and the volume that can be transported in a single vehicle, they never take any action against the purveyors of these US-manufactured weapons: The American gun manufacturers and the gun shop owners. Yet, they express concerns about cartel firepower and the flow of U.S.-sourced weapons into Mexico. 

Why US authorities never go after the gun manufacturers and the vendors of these guns and weapons is because of a racist posture that deliberately ignores the role played by white Americans while going after individuals at the bottom of the trade ladder, typically Hispanics and Latinos. US authorities hide behind the 2nd amendment of the constitution that protects the right of any American to buy all kinds of weapons, including military-style weapons. In addition, American lax laws on weapons and drug use create a favorable incubator for the drugs-weapons trade, both inside the US and across the border. Catching a small-fish smuggler doesn't address the fundamental problem of a deeply-entrenched culture of violence in the US that is promoted by the gun cartels and is protected by a primitive constitution from the 18th century.

Statements by US officials, like "The United States Attorney’s Office is proud to work alongside the Department of Homeland Security to make sure we choke off the flow of weapons to violent actors in Mexico and bring their accomplices in the United States to justice," are a hypocritical self-patting on the back in a war on drugs that has been around for several decades without any significant achievement: Americans, mostly of the affluent white middle and upper classes, continue to go unpunished for purchasing cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and other illicit drugs, and creating the demand that drug cartels south of the border satisfy with drug smuggling into the US.

Dumb Poles, Dumb Lebanese: Their Huge Religious Statues Match their Barbarity

Lebanon and Poland share the same ultra-religiosity. They both equate their religious fervor with building giant statues of the Christian pantheon, while the reality on the ground is utter barbarity, superstitions and rejection of Reason. Which is why thousands of Poles fleeing Nazi Germany found shelter in Lebanon, then dominated by the Maronite Catholics.

As a Polish village has just erected Europe's tallest Virgin Mary (see below), I cannot help but see the similarity with Lebanon's pathological obsession with erecting giant statues.

I have also resurrected a couple of opinions that I wrote some time ago about Poland's appointing Jesus as "King of Poland", and about a passage in the Gospels that shows Jesus was a racist Jewish supremacist fanatic who described the Lebanese as dogs to their Jewish masters.

Enjoy.
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A query to AI returned the following:

Lebanon is home to several monumental statues of saints and religious figures, most notably the world's largest statue of Saint Charbel, which stands 23 meters (75 feet) high in Faraya and weighs 40 tons. Constructed in 2017 by sculptor Nayef Alwan using fiberglass to withstand harsh weather, this 27-meter-wide monument was erected as a thanksgiving for a miraculous healing and is located at an altitude of 6,070 feet in Mount Lebanon.

Other significant religious monuments include:

Our Lady of Lebanon: A giant statue of the Virgin Mary located in Harissa, overlooking the Jounieh bay and serving as a major pilgrimage site revered by both Christians and Muslims.

Saint Charbel (Hammana): A 16-meter tall statue erected in July 2018 at the southern edge of Hammana, featuring a chapel in its base.

Christ the Redeemer (Al Qaa): A massive 26-meter monument (16m statue on a 10m base) installed in March 2026 on Jabal Al-Salib near the Syrian border, designed to symbolize hope and resilience amidst regional conflict.

Christ the Redeemer (Zouk): A 12-meter statue atop a 45-meter base, overlooking the Nahr El Kalb Valley, which has been a landmark since 1952.

Saint Charbel's Statue on a mountaintop in Lebanon

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Comment:
Please note that the saints represented in these Lebanese statues always have a finger wagging at their faithful. Not unlike fundamentalist Muslim clergy such as feu Hassan Nasrallah (of Hezbollah fame) whose grandeur was boosted with his wagging his index finger all the time as he gave his pathological drivels to his followers. The wagging finger means a bunch of things: You, the faithful, are dumb and I am showing you the Way. Or you, the faithful, are sinners and I (the saint or the preacher) am scolding you for your bad behavior, etc. Wagging a finger at someone in civilized society is generally considered offensive and threatening.
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Europe's tallest Virgin Mary statue rises in Polish village
Ilaria Federico
Sat, August 15, 2026


Europe's tallest Virgin Mary statue rises in Polish village

A 55-metre statue of the Virgin Mary now towers over the Polish village of Konotopie, the tallest Marian monument in Europe and second in the world after the Mother of All Asia effigy in the Philippines.

The concrete and steel figure will be blessed on 15 August, the Catholic feast of the Assumption, though the site remains unfinished, with debris still scattered across a muddy car park.

The statue was funded by billionaire Roman Karkosik at an estimated cost of 100 million zlotys (around $26 million), according to local media. Officials in nearby Kikol, one of the region's poorest municipalities, hope it will draw pilgrims and create jobs. Coaches were already arriving while scaffolding was still up, a site guard said.

Not everyone is convinced. Some residents told AFP the money would have been better spent on a hospital or orphanage.

Poland remains a Catholic stronghold, but is secularising fast: 71% identified as Roman Catholic in the 2021 census, down from 88% a decade earlier.

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Re-post from LEBANON IZNOGOOD:

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

Poles Turn Right: Back to Stupid with KING JESUS

The Polish people have long been known for their stupidity. We all have heard Polish jokes in the US and Europe. Regressive right-winging is fashionable again - you know, the degenerate British numskulls and their Brexit, the backwoods Neanderthals of the American South and Midwest and their election of Donald Dumb, and many others... in a global domino effect taking the planet back to early 19th century.

And the stupid Polish people are, of course, in the vanguard of idiocy. What have they done now? Well, they have done what the stupid Jews of Bronze Age Palestine could not do: They have declared one Jesus Christ - an obscure Jewish rabbi from said Bronze Age Palestine who mounted a failed rebellion against the Roman occupation - as KING OF POLAND. You got it. Catholic Poland now has a Jewish Palestinian king from the Bronze Age. Too bad Jesus wasn't mummified like Egyptian pharaohs.

Mind you that the Vatican was opposed to the idea. It wasn't the senile Bishops' idea to begin with, so they wouldn't have it. But says "father" Paul McDonald in Rorate Caeli BlogSpot: "This was done in the official presence of the President of Poland, Andrzej Duda. Many pilgrims were present in Poland for this event. The act will be repeated in all the Polish cathedrals and parishes. This took place yesterday, Saturday, at the Church of Divine Mercy in Krakow."

And "father" McDonald (no relation to the infamous Canadian child molester priest, whose blog should more aptly be entitled "Rorate Braccis" [drop your pantaloons]) continues in his nonsensical theological garbage: "The providential and proximate origin of the act is to be found in revelations received, or said to be received, by the Servant of God Rosalia Zelkova. The Lord -- she said -- demanded that He be enthroned as King by the Polish Nation as such, and not just in the hearts of the Poles, in a particular manner, and this would have saved Poland in the war that was coming." Sounds almost Socratic in its logic.

And to buttress this solid argument with even more obtuse trash, McDonald expounds: "But the social kingship of our Divine Lord is absolutely founded in necessary and dogmatic truths about Christ. It is not merely an element of private revelation. St. Gregory the Great said that they were heretics who denied that Christ is the King of and over everything." Case closed. McDo nailed it.

Not one history book from the contemporaries of the said renegade rabbi Jesus mentions him. There are serious doubts as to whether he actually existed. His fame was built up out of nothing by some of his followers who went to Rome to continue the rebellion after the Romans destroyed the Jerusalem temple in 70 AD. Soon, he became a legend of sorts, then he was made to be the son of God and to have been born out of a virgin who was impregnated by God without breaking her hymen - the angel Gabriel apparently stealthily "beamed" the sublime sperm across her hymen, and she didn't even feel anything. She had to be told later that she was knocked up - and mystery of mysteries, she remained a virgin even after giving birth to the rebellious baby in a stable with donkeys around. Then he was made to have risen from the dead and ascended to the Big Zombie in the sky. 

These stories told by his "disciples" a century after the death of the rabbi became fertile ground for exaggerations and mystification, so much so that the credulous wife of a Roman Emperor facing extinction at the hands of the northern barbarians (the Polish people's ancestors, to be exact) became a secret follower of the Jesus movement and convinced her husband to dump Jupiter for Yahweh, Juno for Mary, and Apollo for Jesus and embrace the new religion. Roman practices did not change much with the switch and adoption of Jesus as the new hero: They still built statues to worship, lit candles, intoned hymns, sacrificed slaves, ate flesh and drank blood (figuratively, but still), enslaved other peoples.... all the way to about the 19th century, with much destruction of so-called “pagan” cultures (like our Phoenician culture here in Lebanon), genocide and inquisitions in between, when secularism opened the eyes of a few enlightened humans who liberated us from the barbarity of Christianity, and for that matter from that of Judaism and Islam as well.

In any case, the regression of the Polish people back to the Bronze Age is astounding. "King Jesus", as far as I can tell, cannot form a government or enact budgets to manage the country. All he can do is "miracles" - often intended as brief suspensions of natural physical laws, and of reason of course. Obviously, none of Jesus's disciples and the thousands of other super-human Christian heroes known as saints was ever able to regrow a severed limb, for example. That would actually be enough to convince me into returning to the faith. Unfortunately, all Catholic miracles are cryptic, invisible, sudden and unproven claims of healing that only an idiot with half a brain can believe. No saint has ever resurrected a dead person, for example. Why? After all, Jesus is claimed to have done it with Lazarus and himself. So if a saint or an apparition of Mary can heal an invisible cancer or quadriplegia, why can't they bring back the dead? Or grow a severed limb?

I used to like the Polish people - not for having given us a Pope by the name of John-Paul II - but for having stood up to dictatorships and for always being victims of oppressive Russians or Nazi Germans. I admit, I used to like the Polish people also because of an impenetrable (meant only metaphorically, of course) Polish woman I met long ago by the pseudonym of Lidia who, in between fantastic voyages to the twilight zone, used to proofread scripts for Roman Polanski. Now, I don't know anymore. I think Polish people, like all stupid people, almost always deserve their predicaments. The Lebanese people are one outstanding example.

So, after congratulating Aoun in Lebanon, Trump in the US, and soon Marine LePen in France, let me extend my heartfelt congratulations to the right-wing extremist, anti-refugee isolationist, white supremacist Jewish King Jesus of Poland. Perhaps Latin might catch up again, and King Jesus might ban anyone who is not Catholic from entering paradise upon their death. After all, jackass King Donald Dumb, himself a descendant of euro-trash peasants, wants to ban anyone who is not a white anglo-saxon protestant from entering the earthly paradise called the United Scams of America.

Halleluiah, brothers and comrades. Ad Majorem Dei Ignominiam.

Posted by Hanibaal at 2:25 PM
2 comments:

Anonymous said...
Read the Bible: St. John 18;33-38 and 19;4.

Anonymous said...
Yeah, so? What idiot would believe the "scriptures" as historically real? What Bronze-age minded imbecile would take these texts as verifiably true? Greeks and Romans used to believe in gods who had wives and children, who were born out of virgins, etc. Christianity cloned the Roman pantheon, replacing Jupiter with God, Juno with the Virgin Mary, Apollo with Jesus, and all the rest of them with saints.... By what measure of sanity can you believe this mythology to be true in this 21st century? Yes, sure, the message of Jesus is one of goodness, just as the words of any "star" of the other extant religions (Islam, Judaism, Buddhism...). They and all of humanity have known this ethics (the Golden Rule) long before some eccentric rabbi in Bronze Age Palestine called Jesus delivered his own drivel on humanity. Grow up, my friend, grow up.
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Re-post from LEBANON IZNOGOOD:

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Jesus is Racist: Calls the Lebanese "Dogs"

I cannot stand religions and all the idiotic tales and fantastic fabrications that they have been spinning for millennia. I particularly abhor the monotheistic religions - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - with all their racism, fascism and claims to exclusivity that led their followers to commit atrocities and mass murder. Original sin, chosen people, splitting of oceans, sticks springing water in the desert, virgin impregnation and birth, miracles, resurrection from the dead, seal of the prophets, the final message, winged horses taking prophets to the heavens, etc.

I wonder how my fellow Lebanese, who are otherwise somewhat educated, have not emulated the European secular enlightenment of 300 years, given that they imitate the West like baboons when it comes to consumption and material pursuits. After years of misinformation, I have finally seen the light and the truth, and it has liberated me. I don’t believe in God. I believe that we are part of the web of life that sprung on this earth because of the specific conditions that exist on this planet (which itself is no more than a speck of dust in the gigantic universe made of billions and billions of galaxies). We are no more than the products of chance and the laws of physics, chemistry and biology. We are not only primates, related to the other primates (monkeys and apes), but we are related to bacteria and viruses and every other form of life. In all our apparent diversity, our biology is exactly like theirs, our DNA is like theirs, and we all make the same products and perform the same functions.

Religion is good for those whose minds are incapable of confronting reality. When we are born, we are born as human beings, not as Christians, Jews, Muslims or any of those labels. It is only after years of indoctrination that we are taught to become "Christian" or "Muslim" or "Jewish". We are not born in these religions; we are only indoctrinated into them. And as we grow up and begin to realize the lies, fallacies, and fabrications we have been brainwashed with, most of us understand but refuse to accept reality and the truth. There are people who prefer to stay in the safe cocoon of religious lies than to venture into the emancipated world of reality. They behave exactly as they are expected to behave: Like farm animals bred for certain tasks, they spend their lives like domesticated, brainless, tamed animals.

The Lebanese are one of the most hypocritical peoples when it comes to their strong attachment to their religions of birth (more of a tribal thing than true belief), yet they practice none of the tenets of their religions. The Lebanese are some of the most materialistic, superficial, consumer-oriented societies whose members care nothing for their fellow Lebanese or human beings in general. The major challenge that the Lebanese are facing - and any other religious people everywhere - is to secularize their minds, like all westerners have done. Religion should become a hobby, something one does on a weekend, to kill the time or to fill a void. Religion should not be the primary criterion in instituting governments. 

For decades, the Lebanese have, in their inferiority complex, worshiped the French. Yet, somehow it always escaped the Lebanese that the French are one of the most secular, anti-religious, anti-clerical, atheist people on earth. Why can the Lebanese easily copy French culture, but not French secularism? I don’t know the answer, but that is not inconsistent with how the Lebanese in general hypocritically define themselves: Westernized Arabs, or Phoenicians, or Christians.... anything to separate them from the "scum" surrounding them. Yet, they are identical to the scum surrounding them, specifically in their attachment to religion.

There is a story in the Gospels that I remember reading once, and wonder how do the Lebanese, the Christians in particular, explain it. The language is very clear.

In the Gospel of Mark (7:24-30), a Phoenician woman comes to Jesus who was visiting Sidon and Tyre. In her very Lebanese way, she lies to Jesus about how much she has faith in him (because she wants something from him) and, having heard that he is some kind of medicine man who heals people, she begs him to heal her sick daughter. Now Jesus, who elsewhere in the fucking Gospels says that he has come for everyone and that he has come to change things and all that crap, suddenly feels like a Jewish ultranationalist, calls the woman a non-Jewish "dog" unworthy of him and that he does not dispense his miracles to non-Jewish dogs like her. She, again, as the persistent lowlife Lebanese haggler-beggar that she is, tells him that "even dogs [like her] eat from the crumbs of their [Jewish] masters". And, to conclude this otherwise disgusting exchange, Jesus now is seduced by her persistence that he deigns to step down from his superior Jewishness and grants her her favor, namely to heal her daughter, at a distance mind you, without seeing the daughter or going to her bedside.

I am neither Christian, nor Jewish, nor Muslim. But if I were a Lebanese Christian and I happen to read this story, I would immediately renounce Christianity. Jesus hated the Phoenicians, my ancestors. He called them "dogs". He referred to the Jews as “masters” over the Phoenicians. They should return the favor, call him a fucking dog and not the son of God and a virgin Jewish underage teen bitch whom God supposedly impregnated via an angel and without breaking her hymen….

REASON, my friends, is what saved Europe and made the West what it is today: A haven of individual freedoms, human rights, respect for all life, equality, scientific progress, democracy. REASON, not God. It is by banning God from the public square and from government that the West is what it is today.

Here is the text of Mark (7:24-30):

24
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice,
25
but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet.
26
Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter.
27
He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”
28
But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
29
Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”
30
So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.

Or the same text from Matthew 15:21-28:

21
Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon.
22
A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
23
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."
24
He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."
25
The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.
26
He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
27
"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
28
Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

US Supports the Extermination of Indigenous Palestinians by Foreign Jews

I sometimes wonder what the German and European Nazis knew when they perpetrated the Holocaust. 

I also know that the American policy - of both Democrats and Republicans - is to wipe out Palestine off the face of the earth and give all of Palestine to the Zionists, something that Arab states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Egypt and others also endorse. 

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Why Israel has done so little to rein in spiraling settler violence against Palestinians
JOSEPH KRAUSS
Updated Sat, August 15, 2026


Israeli settlers put up an Israeli flag on a hilltop after it was taken down by Israeli and peace activists during a protest in support of local landowners whose property is threatened with seizure by settlers, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Beit Sahour, Friday, Aug. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean) (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinians in the occupied West Bank village of Qusra have huddled inside their homes for days on end, unable to leave because of the threat posed by Israeli settlers.

The Israeli military, which over the past three years has displayed staggering military and intelligence capabilities from Beirut to Tehran, has yet to fully remove the settlers from the area of the village, about an hour's drive from Tel Aviv.

The United States, which provides billions of dollars in military aid to Israel, has issued a scathing rebuke, perhaps because one of the homeowners is a Palestinian American living in Ohio.

Even U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee [an inbred moron from the backward slavery state of Arkansas with the poorest record of education in the Union, and an American Christian Zionist who takes the bible literally like all religious fanatic fundamentalists do with their religious texts. Huckabee, who calls for the annexation of the West Bank of Palestine by Israel, oxymoronically and surprisingly called the Jewish settlers "terrorists" . You see, Huckabee is a southern US moron; he doesn't have a mind. I refrain from asking him to make up his fucking mind.

Israel's defense minister dismissed them as radical misfits — "boys on the hills."

In reality, they are the tip of the spear for a much larger movement, supported by successive Israeli governments and supercharged under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that is aimed at cementing Israeli rule over the territory and preventing the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Settlements built over decades now house over 500,000

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state.

Since then, the Israeli government has built nearly 150 settlements that are home to well over 500,000 Jewish settlers. Many of the settlements resemble fully developed suburbs, with apartment blocks, shopping malls, parks and industrial zones.

Radical settlers have established hundreds of additional outposts without government authorization, while still enjoying protection from the Israeli military and often other public services.

Netanyahu's government, the most nationalist and religious in Israel's history, has boasted of establishing over 100 new settlements. On Thursday, as the army deployed in Qusra, members of his Cabinet celebrated the rebuilding of a settlement that had been dismantled in 2005 as part of the Gaza withdrawal.

Israel's current government and much of its political class view the West Bank as the biblical and historical homeland of the Jewish people and see the settlements as key to maintaining security.

Most of the international community views all settlements as illegal and an obstacle to peace.

Separate laws for settlers and Palestinians

The roughly 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority exercising limited autonomy in population centers. Israel's military operates in all parts of the territory, and Palestinians suspected of militancy can be held without charge for months or years under what's known as administrative detention.

The settlers are Israeli citizens, with law enforcement typically handled by Israeli police and civilian courts.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said in 2024 that Israelis would no longer be subject to administrative detention, which has also been used against settlers accused of violence. On Friday, he announced plans to fully transfer law enforcement among settlers to the Israeli police.

The military's role "is to fight Palestinian terrorism" and "focus on protecting the borders and settlements against threats," he said in a statement. "Not chase after boys on the hills."

That would cement the status quo of what are already largely separate legal systems for Jews and Palestinians in the West Bank, which major human rights groups say amounts to apartheid, something Israel denies.

Israel's police and military have been reluctant to confront the settlers

The Israeli police are overseen by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, himself a hard-line settler who has been convicted eight times for offenses that include supporting a terrorist organization. He was a defense attorney for Jewish extremists before entering politics.

The Israeli military says the settlers' actions in Qusra are "illegal, reprehensible and unacceptable," and that it tries to maintain law and order in the West Bank. It says it dismantled two outposts in the area of Qusra and detained one Israeli. [Although the Israeli army is always seen watching with indifference the terrorist settlers rampaging through Palestinian villages, and Israeli soldiers are often seen praying with the terrorists.]

But rights groups say the military frequently turns a blind eye to settler violence, and that when it intervenes it often focuses on protecting the settlers. Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group, says around 94% of investigations into settler violence since 2005 have ended without an indictment, with just 3% leading to full or partial convictions.

US pressure has had little impact, and has eased under Trump

Settler violence intensified after the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023, triggered the war in Gaza. The following year, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on settlers and Israeli organizations accused of violence.

Other Western nations have announced sanctions against Ben Gvir and another hard-line Israeli Cabinet minister, Bezalel Smotrich, accusing them of "inciting extremist violence" toward Palestinians.

The sanctions had little impact, as the settler community rallied around those targeted.

President Donald Trump rescinded the U.S. sanctions at the start of his second term and appointed Huckabee, a staunch supporter of Israeli settlements, as his ambassador.

During his first term, Trump had upended decades of U.S. policy by moving the American Embassy to Jerusalem and supporting Israel's claims to other territories seized in war.

Netanyahu's opponents criticize the violence but support settlement growth

Netanyahu will need the backing of Ben Gvir, Smotrich and other settler supporters if he hopes to keep his job after October elections. He will also need to maintain good relations with the Trump administration.

His opponents have criticized what they characterize as the growing chaos in the West Bank. But most of Israel's political leaders — even critics of Netanyahu — support the growth of existing settlements and are opposed to Palestinian statehood.

Gadi Eisenkot, a former top general seen as Netanyahu's main opponent, criticized the government's handling of the events in Qusra, accusing it of undermining military commanders "in the face of anarchy and violent lawbreaking by an extremist minority." He has also come out against plans to annex the West Bank.

But he has also told Israeli media that he has "never spoken about a Palestinian state," and that he supports settlements that are "in line with Israel's interests."

Naftali Bennett, a staunch settlement supporter and another leading rival of Netanyahu, has condemned the violence, saying it amounts to "terrorism" by a minority.

"Precisely as someone who believes in our right to the land and in the settlement enterprise, we need to denounce this and eradicate the violence from within our own ranks — not wait for the Americans to tell us to do it," he said in a recent interview with Israeli media.

When Bennett was prime minister, during the only brief period in the last 17 years that Netanyahu was out of office, his national unity government approved thousands of additional settler homes.

___

Associated Press writers Erin Cunningham in Jerusalem and Koral Saeed in Abu Snan, Israel, contributed.

Palestine's Christians Face Equal Opportunity Hatred as Muslims by Yahweh's Chosen Fascists

The major problem for Palestinian Christians is that they are not Protestants or Evangelicals. Zionist racism toward Palestinian Christians is in large part driven by the American Evangelical Zionists who, as a branch of Protestantism, hate Catholics, Orthodox, Armenian and other Christians in Palestine.

The imbecile Ambassador of the US in Tel Aviv is a American dumbass moron from the southern slavery states who believes that the Messiah is returning (for Christians) or is finally coming to earth  for the first time (for Jews) from his resort up in the clouds or on Mount Sinai? Hence, this mongrel  hillbilly by the name of Mike Huckabee is all for the Zionist rape of Palestine, while decrying, as he did yesterday, the flagrant ethnic cleansing by the foreign Zionist settlers against the indigenous Palestinian villagers and townspeople.

Should we understand that this inbred American white trash idiot supports the rape of Palestine by non-violent means? How is that possible? Or is he speaking from both sides of his oral orifice?

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Israel’s Christians rely on faith and allies as they fear rising harassment
GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO
Updated Fri, August 14, 2026


A Christian pilgrim attends a Mass in the Basilica of the Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, northern Israel, Aug. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit) (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

MOUNT TABOR, Israel (AP) — Sister Mayela wears her black veil and habit as she walks to work near where another Catholic nun was violently attacked [by rabid Zionist Jews] in Jerusalem's Old City — but she's now accompanied by a Jewish volunteer for protection.

Many Christians in Israel, who make up less than 2% of the country's population, are worried visible signs of their faith will draw harassment, which has increased as multiple conflicts grip the region.

"I'm scared after the sister was beat up," said Sister Mayela, a Mexican nun who's lived in Jerusalem on and off for more than two decades. "Before, one could live with more confidence. Some people spat, some said hi. Now we have to live trusting in God."

She finds resilience in her faith — and in support from Israelis like the volunteers. Even that, though, didn't prevent a teen from spitting right behind her as they passed a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews recently. The teen said she was only clearing her throat, but the volunteer reported it to police.

Incidents like that are among the challenges for Christians in Israel, particularly since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7, 2023, plunged the country back into war and polarization. But interfaith leaders and researchers are encouraged by better policing and prosecution as well as the recent appointment of a government envoy to the Christian world, who is Greek Orthodox.

In northern Israel, many Christians say they feel the state isn't doing enough to protect them from crime because they're not Jewish. But those concerns didn't stop groups of Catholics from joining a recent joyous pilgrimage on Mount Tabor, where the Gospels say Jesus appeared transfigured alongside the Jewish prophets Moses and Elijah.

"In a world where darkness is filling the hearts of people, we need to diffuse God's light to other people," said Sister Muna, the nun who led one youth group.

For many Christians and Jews, protecting coexistence in the Holy Land is a moral imperative after their own long histories of religious persecution.

"I don't want Christians to go out of their house in Jerusalem … and have fear," said Yisca Harani, the Jewish Israeli educator and activist who escorted Sister Mayela. "I've gone through this 2,000 years in my Jewish history. I'm not going to let that happen."

Occasional flare-ups occur in multifaith Old City

In the Old City, Jewish men in black hats and tzitzit tassels, Muslim women in hijabs and Christian priests in flowing robes walk past each other daily in the maze of stone alleyways. Many are headed to pray at the Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. These are some of the most sacred sites respectively for Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and they are close to each other.

"If you stroll around in your habit, sooner or later you'll get some spitting next to you," said the Rev. Alberto Pari, who leads interfaith dialogue and Christian-Jewish relations as secretary to the Custody of the Holy Land, the Catholic order ministering to holy sites across the region. "But it's important not to generalize, because that unleashes antisemitism."

Religious Freedom Data Center, the organization that Harani founded to track harassment of Christians, has recorded a near-tripling of incidents in Jerusalem from four years ago to the last three months recorded — about one a day now — virtually all by Jewish religious nationalists.

A Jewish man from a settlement in the occupied West Bank was indicted in the violent attack on the nun in April. The French Biblical and Archeological School of Jerusalem where the nun is a researcher expects "effective prosecution at the criminal and civil levels," said the school's director, Friar Olivier Poquillon [even though there is no precedent whatsoever that Israel prosecutes any Jews for their violence against non-Jews].

Israel's government tackles anti-Christian incidents

Among those reaching out to Catholic leaders to denounce the attack and offer support was Ambassador George Deek, Israel's new envoy tasked with building what he calls the "special relationship" between Christians and the country, to both keep Christians safe and partner on issues like fighting antisemitism.

"We believe that every incident against Christians is immoral, illegal and should be prosecuted. That's exactly what we are going to do," Deek told The Associated Press. "We want to make sure that Israel continues to prosper and grow as a place where Christians can not only survive, but they can thrive."

Around the time that the nun was attacked, two other incidents drew global condemnation. An Israeli soldier smashed a crucifix in a family garden in South Lebanon [See: https://lebanoniznogood.blogspot.com/2026/04/israels-war-against-christians.html] and another stuck a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary also in southern Lebanon, where the military is fighting Hezbollah militants. The soldiers involved received [suspended] military prison sentences.

Most Israelis find harassment unacceptable [that is a big lie]. But Jewish religious nationalists, particularly uneducated young men, remain a threat, said John Munayer of the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue, an interreligious organization in Jerusalem.

Their hostility to Christians is grounded in the history of persecution of Jews in Christian-majority European countries, in faith practices they see as idol-worshipping, and in a "general intolerance" for anyone who's not Jewish near sacred areas like the Western Wall, Munayer said.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict spills over in Christian-Jewish tensions

Then there's the overhanging trauma of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, since most local Christians in Israel and the occupied West Bank are Palestinian.

In Taybeh, the last entirely Christian village in the West Bank, Jewish settlers recently cut through house fences and destroyed fruit and vegetable gardens, said the Rev. Bashar Fawadleh, parish priest of Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church.

"All the people here are afraid," he said. "Settlers come and go every day."

Israel's army declared the village a closed military zone earlier this week to curb the attacks. But concerns about Israel's ability and willingness to rein in the settlers remain even among evangelicals, who are among the staunchest Christian supporters of Israel.

"What happens in Taybeh is really troubling," said David Parsons, spokesperson for International Christian Embassy Jerusalem. "Israeli leaders have realized for some time that Christian support for their nation is not only vital, it's a strategic interest." [Parsons is arguing for Jewish respect for Christians only because it's in Israel's interests, not because it is the moral thing to do. So Christian of him!]

And yet since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, "generalized fear and skepticism" pervaded all interreligious work, Pari said. The interfaith music institute he directs, Magnificat, was invited to play at a peace march in Jerusalem. But when the Palestinian members saw that the stage had been set up by an Old City gate flanked by Israeli flags, they refused to play.

"I felt a real failure," Pari said. "We think that as Christians, we have a very important role to patch things back together. ... It will be difficult, but we can do it."

Israeli Christians hold tight to faith and identity

That faith-grounded resilience prevailed among the Mount Tabor pilgrims, who gathered on the mountain to celebrate the feast of the Transfiguration last week. Rising interfaith tensions and crime have driven many of the area's Christians to emigrate, several said.

"It's very difficult that we keep our identity as Christians in the Middle East, but it's the most important," said John Akleh, 20, who came with Sister Muna's group.

Ten pilgrims from nearby Nazareth — where Jesus grew up — started the climb at 4:15 a.m. led by the Rev. Fadi Shallufi in a yearly tradition they've maintained even in wartime.

"We will have a lot of sacrifice, but you will be sure in this land something will change," Shallufi told them as he celebrated Mass in the mountaintop basilica.

___

Associated Press journalists Ibrahim Hazboun and Moshe Edri contributed from Jerusalem.

___

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

[Updated] Palestine Ethnic Cleansing by "Low Dose" Terror: 1947-1948 Zionist Terror Redux

[updated with appended BBC and CNN reports]

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The historical facts are undeniable, regardless of the WHY questions. Whether it is for a so-called "homeland", or fleeing the European Holocaust of European Jewry, or the biblical bullshit of a "return" to the Cursed Land, or for what it really is: A me-too colonial project imitating what the French, the Spanish, the Dutch, the English etc... did with their colonial empires, the facts are:

Europeans who converted to Judaism in recent history and without any cultural or genetic connection with Palestine descended in illegal hordes of migrants on the country of Palestine at the turn of the 19th-20th century, then administered by the English imperial colonial crooks in a fiduciary capacity. Which means that the Palestinians were asked by the League of Nations (the UN at the time) to TRUST the English as they began rebuilding their country after the end of the Turkish occupation in 1918. But the English decided to sell Palestine for lots of money to the colonial-minded European Jewish bankers, a.k.a. the Zionists, who dreamed of a Jewish colony in Palestine. 

These illegal migrants, sophisticated and wealthy Europeans, that were heavily armed by the English, began a campaign of terror against the indigenous Palestinians to force them out of their ancestral cities, towns, villages and homes. Within two decades (1920s-1940s), hundreds of thousands of indigenous Palestinians were forced out of their native villages into refugee camps, both inside Palestine and in the neighboring countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, while hundreds of thousands of European settlers killed, stole, raped and confiscated the land abandoned by the refugees to create their brand new synthetic Zionist colony in Palestine. From 5,000 Jews (only pilgrims) to 600,000 Palestinians in 1910, the population stands today at 5 million Palestinians (not counting the millions of refugees scattered around) and 5 million Zionists who are well-armed and funded by American government and Evangelical largesse.

In gradual increments since that time, the Zionists never ceased their campaign of terror which they have been delivering as a "low-dose ethnic cleansing". They merely adjusted their barbarity to the prevailing political conditions, in bouts of relative calm alternating with episodes of terrorism against those Palestinians who stayed on the land and who tried to fight off the rape of their country. The ups and downs in the Zionist terror campaign do not change the trajectory of the campaign and its ultimate objective: More ethnic cleansing, more displacement, more killings, more home demolitions, more villages eliminated from the maps... turning historic Palestine into a brand new artificial state called Israel.

As we write these lines, thousands of foreign Jewish settlers are attacking Palestinian villages, burning crops, demolishing homes, killing villagers, and stealing land. 

No one seems to notice. Not the Europeans. Not the American servants of the Zionists. And worst of all, the Arabs who seem to have agreed to join in the gang rape of Palestine. As the Zionists are now praying inside Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, which they want demolished and replaced by a Third Jewish Temple (after the first one was destroyed by the Babylonians and the second one by the Romans thousands of years ago), one wonders how can barbarity and religious fanaticism have such a long half life. 

To carry grudges for thousands of years, and to mass-murder innocent populations because of some fantasy mythology written on parchments from the Stone and Bronze ages, is beyond barbarity. It is deliberate hatred, cruelty and atrocity. And yet, this is the 21st century when humans have gone to the moon, have deciphered their own DNA, and are radically transforming the species itself. 

Fundamentalist Jews and fundamentalist Muslims share the same outlook of hiding their criminality and barbarity behind fictional texts some filthy disgusting nomads in the Arabian Peninsula recited and wrote during the Bronze Age, and which are now taken as the word of a man-invented god who hovers like a zombie up in the clouds. The Christians, the third monotheistic cult, have just begun to divorce themselves from that barbarity (separation of religion and state), although some still wax nostalgic like Donald Dump's Evangelical criminals who advocate the genocide of the Palestinians by the Zionists because, as they say, "they want to see the coming of the fucking fictional Messiah".

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Israeli settlers besiege three Palestinian families in West Bank’s Qusra
Al Jazeera Staff
Thu, August 13, 2026


Israeli forces stand guard next to settlers in front of Palestinian homes that they have blockaded in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank on August 12, 2026 [Nidal Eshtayeh/AP]

Israeli settlers have besieged three Palestinian families inside their homes in the occupied West Bank, cutting off water and electricity in a campaign residents described as an attempt to steal their land.

Security camera footage from the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, on Wednesday shows Israeli settlers surrounding one of the houses.

Trapped residents said Israeli soldiers had failed to disperse the settlers despite intervening earlier in the day.

Aisha Abu Rida, one of the residents under siege, told Al Jazeera that the siege began on Sunday, with settlers blocking all entrances to her home.

"We are surrounded by settlers, but we are steadfast, God willing. We will not leave our home, no matter what happens. Despite the water and electricity being cut off, we will remain steadfast," she said.

"Despite their repeated attacks, which are aimed at displacing us, God willing, we will remain steadfast and stay in our homes, even if we are martyred," she added.

'Living in fear'

Loai Ridi, an American-Palestinian who owns a house in the village, said his brother Qusai Abu Rida and 18-year-old nephew, Ahmed, were among those trapped.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Toledo, in the United States, he said the family was relying on a temporary solar power system and leftover well water from the winter after supply lines were cut.

"He [Qusai Abu Rida] does not want to leave the home. Because if he leaves the home, the settlers will take over immediately," Ridi said. "It's really very, very difficult. He just told me, 'I only have supplies for two to three days left. And if no one is able to provide us with food, I am not sure what else I can do'."

Ridi said Israeli forces had done little to intervene when his brother had called for help on Sunday, and alleged the soldiers had knelt to pray alongside the settlers at the scene, in footage that has since circulated on social media.

"They basically did nothing," he said.

Earlier on Wednesday, more Israeli forces arrived on the scene, dismantled the settlers' tent and clashed with about 50 to 60 of the group before withdrawing. "They were unable to evacuate the settlers because they were not firm with them," Ridi said. "They should have picked them up in vans and taken them away."

The Israeli military said later on Wednesday that it would deploy an additional infantry battalion to the area, with its chief of general staff ordering continued efforts "to strengthen order and operational control" and prevent further incidents.

A day earlier, the Israeli military had said it received reports of settlers entering and seizing Palestinian homes and land in the area, describing the activity as "illegal, reprehensible and unacceptable" and disruptive to residents' daily lives. It added that disciplinary action would be taken against security personnel filmed at the site in preceding days.

Ridi said his family was "living in fear".

"They are being harassed and attacked by the settlers," he said. "I cannot do anything about it."

'Ethnic cleansing'

Qusra sits in Area B of the occupied West Bank, nominally under Palestinian civil administration. The village has faced a string of recent attacks, including the burning of a newly built mosque last month.

In the neighbouring village of Jalud, a similar two-week siege in July forced two Palestinian families off their land before settlers took over the property.

Violence and land seizures in the occupied West Bank have intensified over the past months, with Jewish settlers emboldened by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has overseen a rapid expansion of settlement construction in the territory.

More than 500,000 Israelis live in the occupied West Bank in settlements that are considered illegal under international law, alongside roughly three million Palestinians. Israel has occupied the territory since 1967.

According to the Israeli settlement watchdog Peace Now, there are 146 illegal settlements in the West Bank and a further 390 smaller outposts.

"Breaking the Silence", an Israeli rights group, said on X that while settlers commit "daily terror against Palestinian men, women, and children … neither this terror nor ethnic cleansing would be possible without the [Israeli] army's support".

The United Nations has also warned that the situation in the occupied West Bank has reached a "breaking point".

According to UN figures, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 76 Palestinians, including 18 children, in the occupied territory so far this year. About 3,800 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, have also been displaced by settler violence, demolitions and evictions.

De Facto Annexation

UN's Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov said on Tuesday that the UN has documented more than 1,430 settler attacks resulting in casualties or property damage across roughly 260 Palestinian communities in 2026, with many carried out in the presence of Israeli forces.

He also noted that Israeli authorities have also advanced or approved roughly 12,360 settlement housing units across the West Bank this year, including 5,160 in occupied East Jerusalem.

"These are interconnected steps, not isolated developments," Alakbarov said, warning that they were reshaping the occupied West Bank, weakening Palestinian governance and advancing "de facto annexation".

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Please note the hypocrisy of the Israeli and US governments: Israeli officials (and the criminal dumbass Evangelical US ambassador, the moron Mike Huckabee) make statements condemning the terrorist Jewish settlers and pretending to "protect the residents", while IDF soldiers pray with the Jewish terrorist settlers and watch them with complicit indifference as they evict Palestinians out of their homes to steal their land and property.

How can decent people around the world not resent what the filthy Zionists are doing to indigenous Palestine? 

Israel's strategy is to deplete Palestine of its indigenous people in a "Low dose" ethnic cleansing. Ask yourself: Is there a difference (moral or political) between killing 1 million people in 2 days versus killing 1 million people in 2 years? There is none. 

But Israel is executing the latter, a slow, gradual and low intensity genocide and ethnic cleansing that draws minimal condemnation as it remains beneath the "shock" threshold that would ensue if Israel was carrying out its genocide and ethnic cleansing in one giant bout of atrocities. The world sees it unfolding but doesn't react because the level of violence never exceeds that "shock" threshold, as the violence is administered in small doses over a long period of time. But the endpoint is the same: Genocide and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people of Palestine by foreign settlers.

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Palestinians told to leave homes in village where Israeli settlers besieged houses
Yolande Knell - Middle East correspondent
Thu, August 13, 2026 


The Israeli military said the aim of the operation was to protect the residents [EPA]

About a dozen Palestinian households in a village in the occupied West Bank were told to leave their properties during an Israeli military operation to remove Israeli settlers.

The settlers had besieged residents in three homes in the area since Sunday, cutting off their power and water supplies.

Qusra Mayor, Abdel Azim Wadi, told the BBC that his village had been declared a closed military zone - and Israeli forces were using some of the vacated Palestinian houses as barracks. The Israeli military said the aim was "to protect the residents".

An Israeli spokesman told the BBC the settlers' action was "deplorable" and "unacceptable" and the government would investigate and arrest those responsible.

"The Israeli army is acting against it, and we are investigating it and we will arrest those responsible and we will prosecute them," David Mencer said.

Settlers have been emboldened by the rapid expansion of settlements under the current Israeli government – leading to a dramatic rise in settler violence as they try to drive Palestinians off their land.

All settlements are illegal under international law.

Of the besieged families' three homes in Qusra, which are made up of the Abu Ridi and Hassan families, the residents of two were told to leave on Thursday, they told the BBC. They said those told to leave had since moved into the third house.

Elsewhere in the village, the residents of 11 other houses had also been told to leave by the army.

Earlier, videos shared from Qusra overnight into Thursday showed a dozen Israeli security vehicles – including a bulldozer.

In later footage – filmed in the daylight – there was a long line of Israeli security forces on the road to the Palestinian village.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had "dismantled two illegal outposts".

It added that it had detained one Israeli and confiscated equipment on the outskirts of the Qusra and Jalud areas, near Nablus.

One of those asked to leave their home was Qaher Odeh, who said more than 20 soldiers had entered his house on Thursday morning.

"I was asleep in the morning, my brother and I. They came in and broke down the door, shouting open up, open the door. Even now I still can't process what I saw in front of me. There was more than 20 of them, maybe 30," he said.

"We left and kept walking down towards the lower part of the neighbourhood. Shortly afterwards, they sealed off the entire area.

"There were people being forced out of their homes. A lot of people," Odeh added.

After around 10 hours some families were allowed to return to their homes but found them upturned. One man told us the soldiers had thrown all the food out the fridge and stolen $1,500 in cash (£1,112).

The IDF did not address the allegations when asked by the BBC.

"The soldiers were instructed that the Qusra residents will remain in their homes," the IDF said.

It added that soldiers would not operate inside the Palestinian home that had been subject to the settler's siege.

The IDF stressed that Israeli "liaison officers are in ongoing contact with Qusra's local leadership and are working to avoid disruption to the daily lives of the residents in the area".

Qusay Abu Ridi, one of the trapped Palestinian family members, told the BBC that the house had been attacked again overnight and that a few settlers had remained in the area, hiding from the army.

His brother – who owns the property – is a Palestinian-American businessman who had complained to the US embassy.

The US Ambassador Mike Huckabee – a longstanding supporter of settlements – called the settler intimidation of the Qusra families "a horrific act of terror.

"Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting. No excuse for such thuggish behavior," he posted on X.

The situation in Qusra first began on Sunday when settlers blocked the road to the Palestinian families' gates and cut off their power and water supplies. The first Israeli soldiers who came to the site prayed with the settlers – an act for which the Israel military later said they would be disciplined.

The Abu Ridi and Hassan families made appeals for help on social media after their water and power supplies were cut off on Sunday.

On Wednesday an attempt by Israeli security forces to dislodge the settlers led to confrontations with a bigger group.

Palestinian security camera video shared with the BBC showed confrontations between Israeli soldiers and border police and a large crowd of settlers. The security forces used tear gas and stun grenades.

In other footage, the Israeli forces appear to have confiscated the canopy under which the settlers were sheltering, while leaving their other equipment.

It is not clear exactly what the settlers in Qusra want. In the past, settlers have forced Palestinians out of their homes and seized their properties.

The stated aim of the settlers is to empty the area of its Palestinian residents.

Settlements are illegal under international law, but the Israeli government has promoted their recent rapid expansion.

The case is the latest to draw attention to the relative impunity of settlers and how Israeli forces are struggling to deal with rising settler violence.

Qusra's mayor had earlier told the BBC that local residents had seen "a clear and sustained pattern of targeting Qusra". Last month a newly completed mosque was set on fire with graffiti in Hebrew sprayed nearby.

That settler attack was one of many that followed on from an incident in the Palestinian village of Tal. After Israeli settlers attacked Tal, it triggered an escalation in which six people were killed - four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers – one of whom acted as a security coordinator for a nearby Israeli settlement.

In July, settlers also surrounded a Palestinian home in the village of Jalud, near Qusra, for more than two weeks. Afterwards, the owners fled and settlers took over the property where they remain until now.

[BBC]

According to the UN's figures, 76 Palestinians – including 18 children - have been killed in the West Bank this year, by Israeli forces or settlers. At the same time, three Israelis – including one civilian – were killed in confrontations with Palestinians and in an alleged ramming attack by a Palestinian in the West Bank.

Since January 2023, 127 Palestinian communities in the West Bank have experienced full or partial displacement, including 47 that have been entirely displaced, affecting more than 6,390 Palestinians, the UN says.

It has registered that in 2026, about 3,800 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, have been displaced due to settler violence, demolitions and evictions.
======================================================

Trapped and cut off: Palestinian families under settler siege in the West Bank
Zeena Saifi, Jeremy Diamond, Cyril Theophilos, CNN
Thu, August 13, 2026


Palestinian houses besieged by Israeli settlers in Qusra village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank August 13, 2026. REUTERS/Ali Sawafta - Ali Sawafta/Reuters

Loui Ridi began building a home in his native town of Qusra, in the occupied West Bank, for his two daughters. The girls grew up in Ohio, but family trips made them fall in love with their father's Palestinian roots.

"Can we have a home where grandmother lives, where you were born and raised?" his daughters had asked him, Ridi told CNN.

That dream is now on hold as a group of Israeli settlers lay siege to the hilltop where Ridi's and two other homes sit in a bid to kick out the Palestinian residents.

The settlers pitched a tent, cut off water and electricity lines and blocked roads, preventing anyone from reaching the residents.

Trapped inside are Ridi's brother, Qusai, and Qusai's son, with only enough food to last two or three more days.

"They have their eyes set on the house and on this hilltop; they want to take it," Qusai said.

"We will not surrender and we will not leave, even if we have to drink salt and water in this house and if there's not a single piece of bread left."

Israeli soldiers stand guard outside a Palestinian house in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, on Thursday, August 13. - Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images

Ridi watched in horror from Ohio on security cameras and began contacting the Israeli authorities, which are responsible for security in this part of the West Bank.

And then, to his disbelief, Israeli soldiers arrived, warmly greeted the settlers and then joined them in prayer.

Israeli soldiers and border police arrived at the hilltop on Wednesday, dismantled the settlers' tent and began trying to remove the settlers from the area.

But that effort failed. Dozens of additional settlers arrived, moving boulders into the road and throwing rocks at the security forces, who were seen firing sound grenades and spraying settlers with pepper spray before withdrawing.

We arrived at the scene hours later, driving up the hill to Ridi's house before being stopped by two Israeli soldiers, flanked by a half-dozen Israeli settlers.

"This is a closed military area," one of the soldiers told us. "You're interfering with military activity."

That order also applies to the settlers, but so far it has only been enforced against Palestinians, Israeli human rights activists and journalists who have tried to reach the hilltop.

Unable to reach the home, we spoke to Qusai via video call from the bottom of the hill.

"They are monstruous, so I don't expect them to leave so easily," Qusai said of the settlers.

Israeli settlers run after being chased by an Israeli military vehicle around Palestinian houses in the village of Qusra on Thursday. - Zain Jaafar/AFP/Getty Images

The Israeli military launched a more forceful operation on Thursday morning, deploying an infantry battalion "to protect the residents and maintain security in the area."

One of the military's first moves: kicking more than a dozen Palestinian families in the area out of their homes, including Qusai, who moved in with his neighbor. The soldiers said they needed to use their homes as temporary bases to operate against the settlers.

"I hope this is not a ploy that will eventually lead to the soldiers installing settlers in my home," Qusai told CNN.

Hours later, as news spread, the military reversed course, saying: "The soldiers were instructed that the Qusra residents will remain in their homes."
Settlers' strategy

What's happening in Qusra isn't an isolated incident. And Qusai and the others living on the besieged hilltop have good reason to fear they will never be allowed back into their homes if they leave.

The same group of settlers who have surrounded that hilltop did the same to another Palestinian family in a neighboring village last month. And there, they were successful.

For over two weeks, they surrounded Mahmoud Tubasi's home in Jalud, eventually forcing him and his family to leave. CNN visited the home and witnessed settlers going in and out of the home, standing on the rooftop where a messianic flag had been planted.

The flag is brandished by settlers and frequently flown atop seized Palestinian property. It symbolizes a religious-nationalist claim to the land, viewed by extremist settlers as part of a divinely ordained Jewish return.

Tubasi's neighbors said the settlers have threatened them as well, telling them they are next.

Palestinians inspect burnt-out cars following a raid by Israeli settlers in the villages of Jalud and Telfit, in the occupied West Bank, on August 4. - Issam Rimawi/Anadolu/Getty Images

Palestinians in the West Bank say they've faced what amounts to collective punishment since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 – a sharp rise in settler attacks, forced displacement, and Israeli military incursions.

This year alone, over 3,200 Palestinians have been displaced across the West Bank by settler attacks and demolitions, according to the United Nations.

It has occurred against the backdrop of extremist rhetoric by Israeli ministers and government officials who have openly said their goal is to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out of the entire land.

The Israeli government last month approved plans to allocate close to $800 million to establish new Jewish settlements and build access roads in the West Bank. And dozens of illegal Israeli settler outposts have been rubber stamped by the Israeli government.

Ridi fears the Israeli authorities aren't doing enough.

As a Palestinian-American, he pleaded to the US Embassy in Jerusalem to help him protect his home, which told him to reach out to Israeli authorities.

Five days after the siege on Ridi's home began, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a staunch supporter of Israel who has called himself an "unapologetic" Christian Zionist, condemned the Israeli settlers' actions as a "horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass" and said the embassy has been "VERY involved."

"Things have to change. All we are asking – we need to live in peace and dignity," Loui said. "Living in your own home, without someone being in front of your house like a monster waiting to attack you."