Qusra (also Kusra) ( ar, قُصرة) is a

Palestinian Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

village in the

Nablus Governorate The Nablus Governorate ( ar, محافظة نابلس ') is an administrative district of State of Palestine, Palestine located in the Central Highlands of the West Bank, 53 km north of Jerusalem. It covers the area around the city of Nablus ...

of the

State of Palestine Palestine ( ar, فلسطين, Filasṭīn), Legal status of the State of Palestine, officially the State of Palestine ( ar, دولة فلسطين, Dawlat Filasṭīn, label=none), is a state (polity), state located in Western Asia. Officiall ...

, in the northern

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, located 28 kilometers southeast of

Nablus Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...

. According to the

Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS; ar, الجهاز المركزي للإحصاء الفلسطيني) is the official statistical institution of the State of Palestine. Its main task is to provide credible statistical figures a ...

(PCBS), Qusra had a population of 674 households occupied by 4,377 inhabitants in 2007. According to ARIJ, Israel confiscated land from the two

villages of

Jalud Jalud ( ar, جاﻟﻭﺩ) is a Palestinian village in the Nablus Governorate in the northern West Bank. It is approximately south of Nablus and is situated just east of Qaryut, south of Qusra and northeast of Shilo, an Israeli settlement. It ...

and Qusra in order to construct the two illegal

Israeli outpost In Israeli law, an outpost ( he, מאחז, ''Ma'ahaz'' lit. "a handhold") is an unauthorized or illegal Israeli settlement within the West Bank, constructed without the required authorization from the Israeli government in contravention of Israel ...

s of Ahiya and

Esh Kodesh Esh Kodesh (, lit. ''Sacred Fire'') is an Israeli outpost in the West Bank near Shilo. It falls under the jurisdiction of the Mateh Binyamin Regional Council. Israeli outposts in the West Bank are considered illegal both under international law ...

Location

Qusra is located 16.3 km south east of

. It is bordered by

Majdal Bani Fadil Majdal Bani Fadil ( ar, مجدل بني فاضل) is a Palestinian town in the Nablus Governorate in northern West Bank, located southeast of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the town had a population of 2 ...

and

Duma A duma (russian: дума) is a Russian assembly with advisory or legislative functions. The term ''boyar duma'' is used to refer to advisory councils in Russia from the 10th to 17th centuries. Starting in the 18th century, city dumas were for ...

to the east,

Jurish Jurish ( ar, جُريش) is a Palestinian town in the Nablus Governorate in northern West Bank, located 27 kilometers Southeast of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the town had a population of 1,384 inhabita ...

to the north,

Talfit Talfit ( ar, تلفيت) is a Palestinian village in the Nablus Governorate in the northern West Bank, located southeast of Nablus. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) census, it had a population of 2,824 in 2007. 1 ...

to the west, and

to the south.

History

Ottoman era

In 1596 the village appeared in Ottoman tax registers under the name of ''Qusayra'' as being in the ''

nahiya A nāḥiyah ( ar, , plural ''nawāḥī'' ), also nahiya or nahia, is a regional or local type of administrative division that usually consists of a number of villages or sometimes smaller towns. In Tajikistan, it is a second-level division w ...

'' of Jabal Qubal in the '' liwa'' of

. It had a population of 14 households, all

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

. The villagers paid a fixed tax-rate of 33.3% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops,

olive The olive, botanical name ''Olea europaea'', meaning 'European olive' in Latin, is a species of small tree or shrub in the family Oleaceae, found traditionally in the Mediterranean Basin. When in shrub form, it is known as ''Olea europaea'' ...

trees, goats and/or beehives; a total of 3,000

akçe The ''akçe'' or ''akça'' (also spelled ''akche'', ''akcheh''; ota, آقچه; ) refers to a silver coin which was the chief monetary unit of the Ottoman Empire. The word itself evolved from the word "silver or silver money", this word is deri ...

.Hütteroth and Abdulfattah, 1977, p. 135 According to

Finkelstein Finkelstein ( he, פֿינק(ע)לשׁטײַן or , russian: Финкельштейн) is a German and Yiddish surname originating from Old High German ''funko'' (spark) and ''stein'' (stone). ''Fünkelstein'' meant pyrite (George J. Adler A Dictio ...

et al., Qusra has never been surveyed. They estimated early Ottoman remains based on Hütteroth and Abdulfattah. In 1838 Qusra (spelled ''Kausara'') was classified as a Muslim village in the subdistrict of el-Beitawi. The French explorer

Victor Guérin Victor Guérin (15 September 1821 – 21 Septembe 1890) was a French intellectual, explorer and amateur archaeologist. He published books describing the geography, archeology and history of the areas he explored, which included Greece, Asia Mino ...

described passing by several "magnificent" oaks on the way to the village in May 1870. The village, which he called ''Kesrah'', was described as having about 200 inhabitants. Guérin also noted several ancient rock-cut

cistern A cistern (Middle English ', from Latin ', from ', "box", from Greek ', "basket") is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by t ...

s, the largest of which was at the lower part of the village. In 1882 the PEF's ''

Survey of Western Palestine The PEF Survey of Palestine was a series of surveys carried out by the Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) between 1872 and 1877 for the Survey of Western Palestine and in 1880 for the Survey of Eastern Palestine. The survey was carried out after the ...

'' (SWP) noted that: "West of the village are foundations, and heaps of stones." SWP also described the village (called ''Kusrah'') as: "A village of middling size, on low ground, with olive-trees." In the early years of the 20th century, towards the end of Ottoman rule, Qusra was part of the

-based

sheikhdom A sheikhdom or sheikdom ( ar, مشيخة 'Mashyakhah'' is a geographical area or a society ruled by a tribal leader called sheikh (Arabic: ). Sheikhdoms exist exclusively within Arab countries, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula (Arab States o ...

of Mashiyah Dar al-Haj Mahmud which was nominally administered by the Nasr Mansur family.

British Mandate era

In the

1922 census of Palestine The 1922 census of Palestine was the first census carried out by the authorities of the British Mandate of Palestine, on 23 October 1922. The reported population was 757,182, including the military and persons of foreign nationality. The divisi ...

, conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Qusra had a population of 707, all Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 851, still all Muslim, in 213 occupied houses.Mills, 1932, p
64
In the 1945 statistics Qusra had a population of 1,120, all Muslim,Government of Palestine, Department of Statistics, 1945, p
19
/ref> with 8,938

dunam A dunam ( Ottoman Turkish, Arabic: ; tr, dönüm; he, דונם), also known as a donum or dunum and as the old, Turkish, or Ottoman stremma, was the Ottoman unit of area equivalent to the Greek stremma or English acre, representing the amount ...

s of land, according to an official land and population survey. Of this, 2,763 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 3,091 used for cereals, while 69 dunams were built-up (urban) land.

Jordanian era

In the wake of the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 (or First) Arab–Israeli War was the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. It formally began following the end of the British Mandate for Palestine at midnight on 14 May 1948; the Israeli Declaration of Independence had ...

, and after the

1949 Armistice Agreements The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,Jordanian rule. The Jordanian census of 1961 found 1,312 inhabitants.

1967-present

After the

Six-Day War The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...

in 1967, Qusra has been under

Israeli occupation Israeli-occupied territories are the lands that were captured and occupied by Israel during the Six-Day War of 1967. While the term is currently applied to the Palestinian territories and the Golan Heights, it has also been used to refer to a ...

. After the 1995 accords, 50% of the village land was classified as

Area B The Palestinian enclaves are areas in the West Bank designated for Palestinians under a variety of U.S. and Israeli-led proposals to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The enclaves are often compared to the nominally self-governing black ...

land, the remaining 50% as Area C. 177 dunums of village land was confiscated by Israel in order to build the

Israeli settlement Israeli settlements, or Israeli colonies, are civilian communities inhabited by Israeli citizens, overwhelmingly of Jewish ethnicity, built on lands occupied by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. The international community considers Israeli se ...

Migdalim Migdalim ( he, מִגְדָּלִים) is an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Located 45 kilometres east of Tel Aviv on Trans-Samaria Highway, road 505 and adjacent to the Palestinian territories, Palestinian hamlet of Qusra, it is organised ...

. On 24 December 2014, Israeli forces destroyed with bulldozers over 400 square metres of the village's traditional stone walls close to

September 2011

On the night of 4–5 September 2011, a group of presumably Israeli settlers entered the village at 3 a.m., vandalized the village's Al-Nurayn mosque and tried to set it on fire. They smashed windows, rolled burning tires inside, and wrote "Muhammad is a pig" in Hebrew on its wall. The attack on the mosque came shortly after Israeli police officers had destroyed three illegal structures in the settlement outpost of Migron north of Jerusalem. According to

Agence France Press Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...

, the graffiti also included a

Star of David The Star of David (). is a generally recognized symbol of both Jewish identity and Judaism. Its shape is that of a hexagram: the compound of two equilateral triangles. A derivation of the ''seal of Solomon'', which was used for decorative ...

, and the name “Migron”. The attack, not the first of its kind, is viewed as part of a policy called “

price tag A price tag is a label declaring the price of an item for sale. It may be a sticker or attached by twist tie or other means. Some jurisdictions require items (possibly exceptions for bulk good and produce) to be individually marked with the pri ...

” followed by a radical segment among the settlers, in which they respond to attempts by the Israeli security forces to demolish unauthorized Jewish settlements with attacks against Palestinians. The

Palestinian Authority The Palestinian National Authority (PA or PNA; ar, السلطة الوطنية الفلسطينية '), commonly known as the Palestinian Authority and officially the State of Palestine,

condemned the attack and called on the Middle East Quartet to get involved. The Israeli government also condemned the attack, and has instructed its authorities to “bring those responsible to justice,” and urged all sides to avoid the potential for escalation. The

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

Catherine Ashton Catherine Margaret Ashton, Baroness Ashton of Upholland, (born 20 March 1956), is a British Labour politician who served as the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and First Vice President of the Europea ...

issued a statement which strongly condemned the attack on the mosque, stating: "These provocations seriously undermine efforts to build the necessary trust for a comprehensive peace in the region; ..attacks against places of worship undermine the freedom of religion or belief which is a fundamental human right," calling on Israeli authorities "to investigate the attack, bring the perpetrators to justice and prevent such attacks happening again."

The United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

Department of State also strongly condemned the “dangerous and provocative attacks” on the mosque and called on those responsible to be arrested and “subject to the full force of the law”. Qusra lies outside the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority and depends on the Israeli military for protection, and its residents have no weapons. They organised a neighborhood watch consisting of between 15 and 20 volunteers, who patrol nightly. In case of trouble, the volunteers have instructions to phone the governor of Nablus who would contact the

Israeli Army The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branc ...

(IDF). According to Qusra mayor Hani Abu Murad, the patrol scared off settlers who had approached the village a few days after the mosque was defaced. On 23 September 2011, a group of about a dozen settlers from a nearby outpost approached Qusra, and a warning was announced from the mosque speakers. A large group from Qusra confronted the settlers, and threw stones, after which the Israeli Army arrived, protecting the settlers. The IDF first fired tear gas, then live rounds, killing one man, identified as Essam Kamal Badran, 35, by Qusra mayor Abu Murad, according to ''Haaretz''. A statement from the IDF confirmed its troops had used live fire against the Palestinians after rocks were thrown at security personnel, and said it was working with Palestinian security officials to investigate. The incident received widespread publicity as it occurred just hours before Palestinian President

Mahmoud Abbas Mahmoud Abbas ( ar, مَحْمُود عَبَّاس, Maḥmūd ʿAbbās; born 15 November 1935), also known by the kunya Abu Mazen ( ar, أَبُو مَازِن, links=no, ), is the president of the State of Palestine and the Palestinian Natio ...

took the podium at the

U.N. General Assembly The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA or GA; french: link=no, Assemblée générale, AG) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN), serving as the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN. Curr ...

, making his quest for recognition of a Palestinian state.

November 2017

On 30 November 2017, a group of

Israeli settlers Israeli may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the State of Israel * Israelis, citizens or permanent residents of the State of Israel * Modern Hebrew, a language * ''Israeli'' (newspaper), published from 2006 to 2008 * Guni Israeli (b ...

, consisting of thirteen year old kids and two accompanying adult settlers went on a bar mitzvah hike near the village. The adults were armed with an

M16 rifle The M16 rifle (officially designated Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 rifle was a 5.56×45mm automatic rifle with a 20-roun ...

and a pistol.An Israeli Settler, a Dead Palestinian and the Crux of the Conflict

Isabel Kershner Isabel Kershner is a British-born Israeli journalist and author, who began reporting from Jerusalem for ''The New York Times'' in 2007. Kershner had previously worked as senior Middle East editor for ''The Jerusalem Report'' magazine. She has al ...

, December 22, 2017,

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

According to the Palestinians, one of the Israeli settlers shot killed a local Palestinian man, Mahmoud Zael Oudeh, and the villagers then surrounded and pelted the settlers with rocks. According to the Israelis, the villagers first surrounded the settlers, who took shelter in a cave during which time Palestinians entered the cave pressed on with the attack,Palestinian charged with attempted murder for attacking Jewish hikers near Qusra
YNET, 18 December 2017 until the Israeli army arrived on the scene.Clashes as Extremist Jews March in West Bank Village; Palestinian Reportedly Shot
/ref>Israeli Who Shot Palestinian Near West Bank Village Suspected of Negligent Homicide
Yotam Berger and Jack Khoury December 1, 2017, Haaretz The Israeli army claimed that the hikers did not coordinate their hike with them, however the hikers dispute this and have presented an e-mail requesting authorization and claim they received a verbal confirmation. A week after the incident the Israeli army recovered equipment taken from the hikers in the village and arrested 20 Qusra residents for participation in the incident, subsequent violent clashes, and incitement to terrorism.
YNET, 7 December 2017 A Palestinian man was indicted for attempted murder for hurling large rocks at close range inside the cave, lightly wounding the head of one of the adult chaperones. After being treated for his injuries, one accompanying parent was questioned as a negligent homicide suspect over Oudeh's death where he claimed self-defence, subsequent Israeli police investigation said that he acted in "self-defense".Police: Probe corroborates settler hikers’ version of clash with Palestinians
Times of Israel, 20 December 2017
YNET, 20 December 2017

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

qusra.net

QusraNow
Facebook

*Survey of Western Palestine, Map 15
IAAWikimedia commons

Qusra Village Profile

Applied Research Institute–Jerusalem The Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ; ar, معهد الابحاث التطبيقية - القدس) is a Palestinian NGO founded in 1990 with its main office in Bethlehem in the West Bank. ARIJ is actively working on research project ...

(ARIJ)
Qusra, aerial photo
ARIJ
Development Priorities and Needs in Qusra
ARIJ

February 28, 2013,

Mondoweiss ''Mondoweiss'' is a news website that began as a general-interest blog written by Philip Weiss on ''The New York Observer'' website. It subsequently developed into a broader collaborative venture after fellow journalist Adam Horowitz joined it ...

Uprooting 30 olive trees in Qusra Village - Nablus Governorate
20, July, 2012, POICA * *
Qusra
{{Nablus Governorate Nablus Governorate Villages in the West Bank Municipalities of the State of Palestine