About a dozen Palestinian households in a village in the occupied West Bank were told to leave their properties during an Israeli military operation to remove Israeli settlers, BBC reported. 

The settlers had besieged residents in three homes in the area since Sunday, cutting off their power and water supplies. 

Qusra Mayor, Abdel Azim Wadi, told the BBC that his village had been declared a closed military zone - and Israeli forces were using some of the vacated Palestinian houses as barracks. The Israeli military said the aim was "to protect the residents".