From the United States to Qusra, southeast of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, Luay Abu Rida returned home, but not as a homeowner returns to his safe haven. He returned after spending days monitoring his house via security cameras, while members of his family were trapped inside, settlers arrived, and occupation soldiers stood by without removing the settlers, according to his account.
Abu Rida, a Palestinian from Qusra who resides in the United States and holds American citizenship, is the owner of the house that has been under siege for nine days. While members of his family remained inside the house, he was separated from them, following the events and trying to reach them, before arrangements were made to allow him to enter his home.
Abu Rida that his feelings during the second week of the siege were extremely difficult, adding that he was experiencing the details of what was happening through the cameras, and seeing his house while his brother was trapped inside it.
He says: “It’s a very difficult feeling that this is the second week I’ve been living through, looking at my house and seeing my brother surrounded by cameras.”
But the hardest thing for him, he says, was being close to his mother and siblings, without them being able to go with him to his house.
He adds: “The hardest feeling is that I was just with my mother, my sister and my brothers, and they are unable to come with me to my house.”
Abu Rida returned to the site, but he doesn't know what awaits him when he reaches his home. He says he walked towards the house feeling fearful and unsafe, especially after seeing settlers still arriving at the location.
He says: “Today I saw settlers still coming to the house and the army was greeting them.”
For Abu Rida, the presence of the occupation forces in the area was supposed to mean providing protection for him and his home, and keeping the settlers away from it, not allowing them to reach the house.
He says: “If the army were here to protect my house, they would bring out the settlers and give us protection. But it seems that so far the army has come to greet the settlers and has not brought us protection.”
According to Abu Rida, that reality left him with a clear feeling of fear, despite the coordination that had been made so that he could reach his home.
He says: “There is a feeling of fear and insecurity, and we will see what happens to us.”
Abu Rida does not limit his demand for protection to his home only, but demands that the settlers be removed from the entire area, and he believes that their presence threatens not only his home, but also the residents of the villages in the area.
He says that what is required is not only to deal with the settlers who are in front of his house, but to prevent them from reaching the area in the first place, by dealing with the source of their entry from the southern side, and establishing an army checkpoint that prevents them from reaching the area.
He adds: “So you are protecting not just my house, you are protecting all of Qusra, Jalud and Qaryut. All these villages are suffering from the settlers.”
Abu Rida believes that the statements issued by the army are not reflected on the ground, stressing that what he sees in front of his house contradicts the promises made to remove the settlers.
He says: “There are many statements, but there is no action. This is my house in front of me, and no one can reach it, but the settlers can reach it, and today they reached it. So the situation on the ground tells a different story.”
As a US citizen, Abu Rida not only tried to coordinate locally to get to his home, but says he contacted the American side about what was happening.
In his interview he reveals that he is in direct contact with the US Embassy, as well as with a member of Congress responsible for his region in the state of Ohio.
He says that the American contacts included promises to pressure the Israeli government to remove the settlers from his home, especially since the home is owned by an American citizen.
He adds: “They give me promises that they are working, that they are putting pressure on the Israeli government to remove the settlers from my house since the homeowner is American. But unfortunately, so far nothing has been done on the ground. It’s still just promises.”
While Abu Rida waits for these promises to turn into actual steps, his home remains before his eyes, but he cannot look at it as the safe place he used to return to.
He returned from the United States to reach his home and family, but he found himself facing a different reality: a house that had been besieged for nine days, with settlers able to reach it,and soldiers present on the spot, while the homeowner himself felt afraid as he tried to reach his home.
Abu Rida’s story is not summarized by the long distance he traveled from the United States to Qasra, but rather by the paradox he found himself living upon his return: that the house was right in front of him, and that its owner needed to coordinate in order to reach it, while the settlers could reach it before him.
While awaiting the outcome of the coordination process, Abu Rida remains committed to his basic demand: that the occupation forces remove the settlers from the vicinity of his home the area, and that the promises he received from the American side turn into actual pressure, and not remain, as he says, “promises” whose effect he does not see on the ground.
