The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) prevented on Saturday morning a group of Palestinian farmers from gathering olives from their groves in an agricultural area in Awarta town southeast of Nablus.
According to local sources Awarta farmers were denied access to their olive groves in the eastern area of the town for the second consecutive day.
On Friday local farmers in the same town were attacked by the IOF with tear gas canisters after they tried to fend off aggressive practices by extremist Jewish settlers.
In recent days settlers started to intensify their daily violent attacks against Palestinian villages and residents harvesting their olive trees.
The attacks which include beatings of farmers and destruction of trees preceded the formal start of the olive harvest season in the occupied West Bank.
While settler attacks are a frequent and near-daily reality for Palestinian villages the number and intensity of these attacks increase during the olive harvest season which starts in October and continues until November.
