WEST BANK, (PIC)
Israeli armed settlers attacked on Saturday Palestinian farmers while picking olives in their agricultural lands in two towns located west of Salfit and south of Nablus in the West Bank.
The farmer, Yousef Al-Deek, reported that settlers of the pastoral settlement outpost which was illegally built on citizens’ lands in Kafr Al-Deek town attacked olive pickers in the Khalat Al-Haramiya area west of the town while shouting, cursing, and threatening to make farmers leave their lands, and prevent them from harvesting their olives.
Al-Deek pointed out that the settlers stole, over the past week, 30 bags of olives and agricultural equipment, in addition to grazing livestock among trees and provoking farmers, in an attempt to prevent citizens from reaching their lands.
Agricultural lands in Salfit province are subjected to daily attacks by settlers and Israeli occupation forces (IOF), which have escalated since the start of the current olive season.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers reportedly attacked olive pickers in the lands of Jalud, to the south of Nablus city.
Local sources explained that a number of settlers attacked, under the protection of the IOF, Palestinian farmers in the eastern region of the town and prevented them from harvesting olive fruits, adding that the attacking settlers opened fire towards anyone who attempted to approach the land.
Jalud town is systematically exposed to settlers’ attacks, especially during the olive harvesting season, as farmers of the town have been deprived of accessing more than 500 dunums of lands planted with olive trees.
During the annual olive harvest season, Palestinian lands are subjected to repeated attacks by settlers and IOF, leaving farmers forced to constantly face obstacles and arbitrary practices that prevent them from accessing their lands, which leads to huge material losses and exacerbated daily suffering.
Expectations indicate that farmers will be unable to reach 80,000 dunums of olive groves, due to settlers’ terrorism which is carried out under the IOF protection, leading to the loss of about 15% of this year’s harvest.
