Israeli settlers have been besieging two Palestinian families in their homes in the occupied West Bank since Sunday, with the families reporting that their supplies are running out and rights groups urging authorities to intervene.

The Abu Ridi and Hassan families have been posting on social media appealing for help after their water and power supplies were cut off and their food stocks ran low. Palestinian security camera footage shows settlers tearing down a wall outside the Abu Ridi family's home on Sunday evening and using the stones to block the road.

The incident took place in the village of Qusra, near Nablus. The blockade left seven people, including two young girls, unable to leave their homes while other Palestinians could not reach them. The families live in Area B, a part of the West Bank under Palestinian administrative control and Israeli security control.

Posting on Facebook, Qusay Abu Ridi said the situation was critical, "especially as we are completely isolated." He wrote: "We are living in our own home, on our own land, and we are asking for nothing more than the right to live safely and with dignity."

After the Palestinian homeowners made their initial report to the Israeli army, the first soldiers who arrived at the scene were filmed praying with the settlers.

On Monday, Israeli settlers blocked journalists from the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz from attempting to reach the Palestinian properties. The reporters said Israeli soldiers at the scene refused to help them when their car was blocked for two hours. They were told the area was a closed military zone, though the order was not enforced on the settlers.

A day later, the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din urgently appealed to the head of the Israeli military's Central Command, calling on the army to protect the besieged residents, evacuate the settlers' outpost and hold the settlers accountable.

Late on Tuesday, a Palestinian ambulance was finally allowed to reach the families, delivering food and taking one child away for medical treatment.

At around the same time, the Israel Defense Forces issued a statement condemning the establishment of the new outpost, describing the entering and seizing of Palestinian homes as "illegal, reprehensible, and unacceptable activity."

On Wednesday, the head of the IDF's Central Command, Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, and other senior officers arrived at the scene, where they are said to have met residents and voiced their "grave concern." Palestinian security camera video shared with the BBC subsequently showed confrontations between Israeli soldiers and border police and a large crowd of settlers. Security forces used tear gas and stun grenades.

In other footage, Israeli forces appeared to have confiscated the canopy under which the settlers were sheltering, while leaving their other equipment. "Border Police forces evacuated the tent and are working to evacuate the civilians who were staying there. The incident is still ongoing," the IDF stated. It added that disciplinary action would be taken against security personnel documented at the site several days earlier.

By Wednesday, Israeli security forces were reported to have withdrawn from the settler outpost, with about a dozen settlers said to remain at the site.

The Palestinian village mayor, Abdel Azim Wadi, 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 attack was one of many that followed an incident in the Palestinian village of Tal, where an escalation triggered by a settler attack resulted in six deaths, four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers, one of whom had served 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. The owners subsequently fled and settlers took over the property, where they remain.

The latest developments come as a senior UN official warned the Security Council in New York on Tuesday that "the West Bank is at breaking point."

"Settler violence has reached unprecedented levels," the UN's Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Ramiz Alakbarov, told the Security Council. He cited what he described as "the sobering human toll" and noted that the Nablus Governorate in particular had been hard hit by recent violence.

According to UN figures, 76 Palestinians, including 18 children, have been killed in the West Bank this year by Israeli forces or settlers. Three Israelis, including one civilian, were killed in confrontations with Palestinians and in an alleged ramming attack in the West Bank during the same period.

The UN also reported that 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. In 2025, approximately 3,800 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, have been displaced due to settler violence, demolitions and evictions.

Speaking at the same UN meeting, Israel's Ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, dismissed the notion that settlements were an obstacle to peace. He said settlements would remain and continue to grow, citing what he described as his country's biblical, historic and legal rights to the land. "The Security Council must understand a simple truth: we are not going anywhere," he said.

All settlements are illegal under international law. Outposts are established without official Israeli authorisation.