The Israeli occupation authority on Monday morning uprooted 135 olive trees from Palestinian-owned agricultural lands in Wadi Qana area west of Deir Istiya village in the West Bank province of Salfit.
Director of Salfit agriculture department Ibrahim al-Hamad said that the Israel nature and parks authority had already notified owners of the olive grove of its intention to remove the trees at the pretext that Wadi Qana is a nature reserve where planting activities are prohibited.
For his part field researcher Khaled Maali said that Wadi Qana is a valley encircled by eight illegal Israeli settlements expanding at the expense of the so-called reserve while local farmers are barred from planting trees or setting up structures on their own lands in the area.
Maali affirmed that Israel violated the international humanitarian law when it classified the area as a nature reserve because such a step adversely affected the lives of the local residents especially the farmers
Wadi Qana has historically been an agricultural and recreational area for local Palestinians who own lands there although it was declared a nature reserve by the Israeli army’s civil administration in 1983.
Israel has used this designation for years as a pretext to justify uprooting Palestinian crops and trees and forcing the natives out of the area according to Israeli rights group B’Tselem.
