Israeli Extremists Uproot 450 Palestinian Olive Trees in Salfit, West Bank

PNN/ Salfit/

Israeli settlers, probabled to have entered Salfit from Immanuel settlement annexing Deir Istiya village, Tuesday morning have uprooted 450 olive trees planted by Palestinian farmers.

Amal Qoqash, Mayor of Deir Istiya said that the farmers were shocked to find their trees uprooted and sabotaged on their way to their lands.

To his part, researcher Khaled Ma’ali said that the settlement of Immanuel was constructed on the occupied land of Deir Istiya, Salfit, in addition to Jinsafut and Fundoqumiya villages of Qalqilya district, adding that the settlement also confiscated a land and constructed an industrial zone on it.

According to Ma’ali, the settlement looks onto Qana green valley. And so, the settlers look forward to seize the valley, and displace the farmers from their lands.

The settlers have paved way for it through getting an order from Israeli occupation authorities to consider the valley a natural preserve, which prevents the Palestinian farmers (landlords) from planting or building agricultural barracks in it.

Israeli Terrorists Uproot 70 Palestinian Olive Trees In Hebron

HEBRON, March 14, 2015 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers Saturday uprooted dozens of Palestinian-owned olive trees in Khlit al-Adra area in Hebron, according to a local activist.

Rateb Jabour, of the Anti-Settlement Committee in Hebron, told WAFA that settlers from the Israeli settlement of Maon, built illegally on Palestinian land in Hebron’s Yatta town, uprooted around 70 olive trees belonging to the family of Shahin.

He said that settlers, with the protection of Israeli soldiers, tend to target Palestinians and their properties in the area for the benefit of expanding nearby illegal settlements.

Settlements are illegal under international law as they violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits the transfer of the occupying power’s civilian population into occupied territory.

Earlier Saturday, settlers, under Israeli soldiers protection, uprooted a number of olive saplings belonging to a Palestinian in al-Khader village to the south of Bethlehem

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5 Meter Snake Found In Northern West Bank

QALQILIYA (Ma’an) – A Palestinian farmer on Tuesday found a huge dead snake in fields in the northern West Bank village of Azzun east of Qalqiliya.Locals told Ma’an that Mumin Qatish was checking his land near the Israeli settlement of Maale Shomron when he saw the snake. He carried it on the roof of his car and took it to the village to show locals.

Qatish did not say what species the snake was, but it was more than five meters long and about four inches in diameter.

It was an unusual find because snakes that large are not thought to be indigenous to the West Bank.

Villagers speculated that the snake, if it was a pet, might have escaped its owners in the settlement and died in the fields as a result of freezing weather or coming into contact with pesticides.

Israeli Terrorists Uproot 5000 Olive Tree Saplings Near Turmusayya

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Jewish settlers have uprooted more than 5,000 olive tree saplings in agricultural lands east of the town of Turmusayya in the central West Bank north of Ramallah, locals said Thursday.

One of the owners of the lands targeted, Awad Abu Samra, told Ma’an that in the last week settlers have repeatedly raided the area to attack the olive tree saplings.

The attacks are reportedly carried out in order to ensure that Palestinian farmers are unable to plant in the area and thus force them to leave the land, leaving it open to confiscation by settlers.

He estimated that the assailants had managed to uproot around 5,000 olive tree saplings out of a total of 8,000 that had been planted since mid-December in the area, known as al-Zahrat.

The saplings had been planted in honor of slain Palestinian official Ziad Abu Ein, who died after being beaten by an Israeli soldier during a march to help plant trees and protest land confiscation in the area on Dec. 10.

Abu Samra said that the settlers who carried out the attacks most likely came from the nearby settlement of Adei Ad, an outpost of the Jewish-only settlement of Shilo located nearby. That settlement was built on lands confiscated from local Palestinians.

Abu Samra said that each day settlers carried out the raids in which they uprooted hundreds of saplings under Israeli army protection, and that they had uprooted the saplings and broken their roots so as to prevent them from being replanted.

Jamil al-Barghouti, president of the Resistance Committee against the Wall and the Settlements, told Ma’an that the “barbaric act” occurred under the cover and protection of the Israeli army.

Barghouthi, who lives in the area, said that he had seen with his own eyes settlers attacking farmers as they worked in the area, in a bid to kick them off the land and seize it for the settlement.

He stressed that the committee will re-plant thousands of olive trees and will provide full assistance to farmers to help them cultivate the land again.

He stressed that Ziad Abu Ein, who was head of the resistance committee until being killed earlier in December, had been “martyred” while working to plant the land and that the committee was dedicated to continuing his work.

Attacks on olive trees are a key way that Palestinians are forced out of their homes and their lands confiscated for settlement construction, as the loss of a year’s crop can signal destitution for many.

Over 7,500 olive trees were damaged or destroyed by settlers between January and mid-October in 2012, according to the UN.

Since 1967, approximately 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted in the occupied West Bank, according to a joint report by the Palestinian Authority and the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.

The olive industry supports the livelihoods of roughly 80,000 families in the occupied West Bank.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank is systematic and ignored by Israeli authorities, who rarely intervene in the violent attacks or prosecute the perpetrators.

As of mid-December, there had been 320 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2014, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Israeli Occupation Soldiers Set Fire to Olive Trees in Hebron

HEBRON (Ma’an) — Israeli soldiers set fire to Palestinian-owned olive trees near the illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba in Hebron late Thursday.

Witnesses told Ma’an that Israeli soldiers deployed in the area pushed a burning tire into an area of olive trees, causing severe damage.

Local Palestinians called the fire brigade to extinguish the blaze but were prevented from arriving in the area by Israeli forces.

Jewish settlers routinely threaten and harass local Palestinians in Hebron’s Old City in an effort to force them to hand over their properties for the expansion of Jewish settlements.

Over 500 Jewish settlers already live in the Old City, many of whom have illegally occupied Palestinian houses and forcibly removed the original inhabitants. They are protected by thousands of Israeli soldiers.

A 1997 agreement split Hebron into areas of Palestinian and Israeli control.

The Israeli military-controlled H2 zone includes the ancient Old City, home of the revered Ibrahimi Mosque — also split into a synagogue referred to as the Tomb of the Patriarchs — and the once thriving Shuhada street, now just shuttered shops fronts and closed homes.