No ceasefire in the West Bank, lament Palestinians under siege

As masked settlers attack their homes and olive groves, residents of Turmus Ayya have no one to turn to, they tell Ruth Michaelson

- Ruth Michaelson

Palestinian-American Yaser Alkam in the groves which are being attacked.

Every piece of furniture in Yaser Alkam's palatial six-bedroom home in the West Bank town of Turmus Ayya was shipped in from America from the gigantic black refrigerator complete with ice machine to the pots of plastic green spiralled topiary next to the front door.

Yaser spent six months remodelling the house, which sits on land owned for generations by his family after he and his wife, Jinan, returned from California. He enjoys sitting at his desk, writing legal briefs and occasionally looking up at a screen showing a panorama of security camera footage from beyond the stone walls around his enormous driveway.

The cameras are a hangover from his 35 years in the US: like 85% of residents, Yaser is a US citizen. Turmus Ayya has the feel of a US suburb with large white-stone villas dotted among acres of olive groves. Every one of these mansions is ringed with cameras, but those on the other side of town are at the mercy of gangs of armed, masked settlers on the rampage, burning cars, houses and threatening anyone in their way.

"God forbid if they were to reach this neighbourhood: that means the whole town has been taken," Yaser said. A fragile ceasefire agreement that Washington is struggling to hold together in Gaza means nothing in the West Bank, where violence flares daily and diggers heralding settlement expansion sit on every hillside.

The several thousand Palestinian-Americans living in Turmus Ayya feel they are under attack by the Israeli authorities backed by settlers at the heart of the Israeli government, while also being abandoned by Washington.