The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) prevented on Tuesday several Palestinian farmers from entering their lands to pick olives in Jib village northwest of Occupied Jerusalem.
Local sources reported that IOF closed the checkpoint which links the city of Jerusalem to its northwest villages and prevented farmers from accessing their lands for picking olives.
Closing the barrier and preventing farmers from accessing their lands poses a threat to the olive harvest and causes a great economic loss for the town’s farmers as the village depends on agriculture as its primary source of income.
Furthermore village farmers face many difficulties in marketing their products in Jerusalem. One of the most difficulties is because of the Israeli military barriers and the oppressive policies of the occupation in the village.
The village’s area is estimated at more than 9000 dunums of which about 4500 dunums were confiscated for Givat Ze’ev settlement and streets such as Jerusalem-Tel Aviv Street.
Israel confiscated more than 400 dunums for the Separation Wall and the Gibeon settlement which is located on the lands of the village.
Jib village is subjected to tight Israeli siege in a bid to control it due to its important strategic location. The Israeli occupation authority is pushing the Palestinian inhabitants to migrate from it after surrounding it with settlements on all sides and closing it with the Separation Wall.
The occupation army issued dozens of military orders to close areas and thousands of dunums of agricultural lands planted with olives in various parts of the West Bank coinciding with the beginning of the olive harvest season.
Military orders encourage the Jewish settlers to encroach on the Palestinian olive fields steal their harvest and cut down trees in addition to burning and damaging the lands under protection of the Israeli soldiers.
