RAMALLAH, (PIC)
Israeli settlers attacked on Friday Burqa village, east of Ramallah, while Israeli occupation forces (IOF) raided Palestinians’ homes east of the city and others located south of Bethlehem, seized citizens’ vehicles and arrested a number of them.
Local sources reported that dozens of settlers attacked the Wadi Al-Shami area in Burqa, but citizens confronted them and forced them to retreat.
On the other hand, the IOF arrested four citizens, raided a number of homes, and seized 15 vehicles when they stormed the village of Abwein, north of Ramallah.
Meanwhile, the IOF seized a vehicle after storming the town of Al-Khader, south of Bethlehem.
Eyewitnesses said that Israeli troops stormed Al-Khader town and chased young men and obstructed the movement of vehicles, before seizing one of them.
Settlers have escalated their attacks on Palestinian villages and towns coinciding with the olive harvest season.
In Tulkarem, fanatic settlers set fire to olive trees in Ramin Plain, east of the city, and chased farmers forcing them to leave their lands.
Local sources revealed that the fire, due to the direction of the wind, rebounded onto the settlers’ tents, towards their settlement outpost they had forcibly established in the plain, which led the attacking settlers to hysterically chase olive pickers, forcing them at gunpoint to stop working and to leave their lands.
The settlers pursued farmers’ vehicles, attacked, and destroyed a number of them. They also stole the tools and equipment the farmers had to leave behind, and seized some of the harvested olives.
Since the beginning of the olive season this year, and until October 29, the IOF and settlers have carried out 239 attacks against olive pickers, including 109 cases of preventing access to their lands, according to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.
Such attacks have resulted in the martyrdom of the citizen Hanan Abdul Rahman Abu Salama (60 years old) from the village of Faqqu’a, northeast of Jenin, and the injury of more than 50 others, in addition to burning and uprooting hundreds of olive trees and steeling their fruits.
