Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Wednesday attacked Palestinian farmers in the northern Jordan Valley and confiscated equipment used for pumping water to agricultural lands local sources reported.
Mu’taz Bsharat who is in charge of the settlement file in the Jordan Valley said in statements to Quds Press that an Israeli army force accompanied by officials from the co-called Planning and Building Committee broke into Bardala area searched for water holes and blocked them.
Bsharat pointed out that the IOF detained a group of Palestinian farmers while they were working in their lands in al-Ras al-Ahmar area and took them for interrogation before releasing them after a while.
He affirmed that such attacks fall in line with Israeli attempts to pressure Palestinian farmers to abandon their lands which then will be an easy target for Israel’s settlement expansion projects.
According to a number of international and humanitarian institutions Israel continues to crack down on Palestinians in the Jordan Valley either through demolitions or evictions because it realizes the strategic importance of the area on the agricultural and military levels.
In a related context the head of Ein al-Beida village council Mustafa Fuqaha said in a statement that water supply to the villages of Bardala Kardala and Ein al-Beida has been deliberately cut off by the Israeli occupation authorities since Saturday.
Fuqaha warned that 3000 dunums of agricultural lands are now threatened by drought which in turn will adversely affect nearly 20000 livestock.
Citizens from the three villages staged a sit-in on Wednesday in protest at the unjust Israeli measures. They later received promises from the Israeli authorities saying that they will re-pump water to the villages.
