Israeli forces on Thursday moved against rogue settlers who have besieged Palestinians amid unusually strong US criticism, even as Israel inaugurated a major settlement elsewhere in the West Bank.

Settlers near Nablus since Sunday have blockaded Palestinian homes, including one owned by a US citizen, with residents saying they have been cut off from food and other supplies.

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, for years a staunch supporter of settlers, said there was “no excuse for such thuggish behaviour”.

“Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting,” Huckabee wrote on X.

Huckabee said Israel had intervened at the request of the United States, its crucial ally.

The Israeli military said on Thursday it had sent forces to the area a second time, overnight, and dismantled two outposts, detaining one Israeli.

Witnesses said that the settlers remained in the area.

“The settlers are spread out in nearby areas on the adjacent hill. So far, no one has been able to get food and supplies to us because the area is completely sealed off by the army,” said Aisha Hassan, trapped in one of the besieged houses.

The mayor of Qusra, Abdel Azim Wadi, said that the Israeli military had issued temporary eviction orders for the besieged Palestinian homes as it pursues the settlers.

A day earlier, troops had taken down most of a tent but settlers defiantly remained at the site with blankets.

Boosting settlements

The army’s pursuit of the settlers comes on the same day that a number of Israeli officials, including Defence Minister Israel Katz, were celebrating the reopening of another settlement at Ganim in the northern West Bank.

The settlement had been dismantled more than 20 years ago as part of a disengagement plan by the then government which wanted to reduce friction by leaving densely populated Palestinian areas.

Israel at the time also pulled troops and settlers from Gaza, where Hamas took control.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government gave the green light to rebuild the settlement as it seeks to appeal to his hard-right base ahead of October 27 elections, which polls show are looking tight.

The US criticism of the siege is especially striking coming from Huckabee, an evangelical Christian pastor who in the past has embraced Jewish settlement in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, and rejected the idea of a Palestinian state.

Oded Revivi, the former head of the council in Efrat, a settlement near Jerusalem whose population is considered more moderate, said it was impossible to “slap a leftist label on Ambassador Huckabee, the greatest friend of the settlement enterprise in the US”.

“If a true friend like Huckabee has to bang on the table, then all of us need to stop and ask how it happened that we lost our way, and fix it immediately,” he said.

Violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank has increased dramatically since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.

More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law, among some three million Palestinians in the territory.