Palestinians in the West Bank governorate of Nablus in general live in a sea of settlements and outposts but the village of Burin in the south of Nablus in particular is being ravaged by Israel’s settlement expansion and settler violations.
Local activist Namer at-Tirawi said that Burin relies mainly on agriculture and olive harvest but most of its agricultural areas are adjacent to Jewish settlements and local villagers cannot reach them.
Like other villages in southern Nablus Burin has suffered for decades from ongoing attacks by Bracha and Yitzhar settlers — whose settlements were built illegally on West Bank land.
The settler attacks escalate year after year and get closer and closer to the local residents of Burin and their homes.
Tirawi said that local farmers from Burin went to their groves in the southern area of the village to pick olives during the recent harvest season and found most of their crops had been burned destroyed or uprooted by settlers.
In many recent and previous incidents the settlers flooded Burin’s agricultural areas with waste water sprayed chemicals on trees to kill them and contaminate the soil vandalized cars and attempted to burn its homes school and Mosque Tirawi added.
Most of the time Burin villagers are forcibly prevented by settlers and soldiers from having access to their groves and swaths of land and exposed to beating or gunfire and teargas attacks if they try to force their way to their land.
“The settlers persist in their violations. When a citizen and his family come to their land and pick olives they [settlers] steal them as if the harvest belongs to them or they [stealthily] pick figs and sell them at the Yitzhar junction” Tirawi said.
He accused the Palestinian Authority and its officials of being indifferent to the suffering of Burin citizens and farmers due to settlement activity and settlers and not adequately helping them stand in the face of different Israeli violations.
“Only statements and empty words that have no basis in reality are heard from them” he said.
“Unfortunately there are no officials who care about farmers. There is no agriculture minister who says that Burin is a disaster area that should be visited. Even the head of the settlement and wall resistance commission has not visited it at all” he added.
