QUSRA — Palestinian American Loui Abu Ridi raised a giant American flag over his West Bank home, hoping it might deter extremist settlers besieging the property. But it wasn’t enough to stop one of them from walking onto Abu Ridi’s land on Tuesday, during a tense face-off.
Abu Ridi arrived in Qusra late on Monday after traveling from the US, fearing he could lose the property to Jewish settlers who have encircled three Palestinian homes in the village for more than a week, prompting US condemnation.
Abu Ridi, who grew up in the West Bank village, was taking a morning walk among his cherry and fig trees on Tuesday when a settler approached from the hill above, in an encounter filmed by Reuters.
“You came to make a mess, ha?” the settler said in Hebrew as he approached, holding what appeared to be a Jewish law code book in one hand and filming Abu Ridi with a mobile phone.
“You are a terrorist settler, you know that?” Abu Ridi said, also filming with his mobile.
