Days of Palestine – Tulkarm

Israeli settlers of the "Avni Hefetz" settlement, which is located on the Palestinian lands of Shufa village, southeast of Tulkarm, attacked a number of farmers while they were working on their lands west of the settlement.

The activist in the field of defending lands in Shufa, farmer Tahsin Hamed, said that a group of settlers stormed a land owned by the Hamed family, while they were planting olive trees, and prevented them from working, and expelled them from it at gunpoint.

Israeli settler attacks take place throughout the years, but they consistently increase in number and intensity during the annual olive season in Palestine.

OCHA has said that settler attacks in the occupied West Bank have consistently been on the rise since 2016, and particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The agency reported that in the first five months of 2020, Israeli settlers committed 143 attacks, resulting in the “injury of 63 Palestinians, including 13 children, and damage to over 3,700 trees and saplings, various field crops, and more than 100 vehicles, among other assets.”

"Farmers need permanent support in the face of the daily attacks of settlers. The corona epidemic has increased the burden on farmers due to the damage caused to marketing and production in the agricultural sector,” said Palestinian farmers.

"Despite the threats and dangers we face, we continued our work with the support of Palestinian farmers.”