DayofPal– This year’s olive-picking season in the West Bank has been fraught with intensified settlers’ attacks explicitly greenlighted by the Israeli government and far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who has escalated measures against Palestinians since the onset of Gaza war.
The Palestinian Authority’s Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission has documented a staggering 239 settlers’ violent incidents related to olive picking since the season began, including 109 instances where farmers were outright barred from their fields.
This ongoing strife has not only led to theft but also to acts of arson against olive trees, leaving local communities grappling with the loss of their livelihoods.
The Authority revealed that over 14,280 trees havr been damaged or destroyed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank since the war on Gaza started, adding that this year Israeli authorities have greenlighted the largest West Bank land seizure in more than three decades despite that Israeli settlements are considered illegal under international laws.
On Thursday, Colonial Israeli settlers broke into local olive groves near Kafr Qalil village, south of West Bank’s city of Nablus, and started to attack Palestinian farmers, forcibly seizing their harvests.
Local sources and Eyewitnesses said many members from Sabri and Omar Al-Qanai families were attacked and harrased whilst harvesting their olives by armed Israeli settlers who showed repeated pattern of violence against farmers during these days.
On Wednesday, Israeli settlers had cut down and uprooted dozens of olive trees in areas surrounding the Qaryut village, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, according to Wafa news agency.
Anti-settlement activist Bashar Al-Qaryuti said trees next to the illegal settlement of Eli near Nablus had been destroyed as a result of the settlers’ attacks.
On Tuesday, armed settlers launched a coordinated assault on Palestinian communities and agricultural lands in Bethlehem and Hebron all under the watchful eyes of Israeli occupation forces.
In the Khalayel Al-Loze area, southeast of Bethlehem, local sources reported that settlers targeted Palestinian farmers, violently bulldozing olive groves belonging to the Abu Kamil family.
The settlers arrived with heavy machinery, tearing through the cherished farmland and leaving destruction in their wake, further threatening the livelihoods of the local community.
When landowners attempted to confront the armed settlers and halt the destruction of their olive groves, Israeli occupation forces intervened, firing shots into the air and detaining a farmer along with two of his sons, as well as two members of the Abu Kamil family. They were later released, but the attack left a mark on the people.
Meanwhile, extremist settlers wreaked havoc in the village of Yasuf, east of Salfit, damaging olive trees and stealing the harvest.
Farmers reported that settlers from the illegal outposts of Tafuh and Rahalim invaded the “Abu Al-Qaseeb area, breaking branches and pilfering olives, further threatening the agricultural livelihoods that local families rely upon.
Since the olive harvest season began in mid-October, attacks by settlers and Israeli occupation forces have intensified across the West Bank, aiming to pressure Palestinian farmers to abandon their lands.
In response, Hamas leader Abdulrahman Shadid has called for a united front against these aggressions. In a statement on Tuesday, he urged all groups and people in the West Bank to stand firm against the settlers and their violent actions.
Shadid characterized the settlers’ escalating violence as part of a broader strategy by the Israeli government to implement policies of genocide and forced displacement against the Palestinian population.
He asserted that these “terror attacks” would only strengthen the resolve of Palestinians to remain on their land and support the resistance against oppression.
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