A horde of Jewish settlers on Tuesday uprooted a number of olive saplings from a Palestinian-owned grove in al-Masara village southwest of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
Local official Hasan Bureijiya said that settlers uprooted 25 olive saplings in al-Hariqa area near the village adding that the grove belongs to a local resident called Mohamed Bureijiya.
The dispossession and violence that mark Israel’s policy in the West Bank peak during the olive harvest when Palestinians need to access their land to pick olives off their trees according to human rights group B’Tselem.
Every year B’Tselem documents dozens of incidents in which settlers assault Palestinian farmers steal olives and vandalize trees farming equipment and work tools.
Such settler crimes happen under the noses of soldiers who are always present in nearby areas escorting the assailants or watching them from a distance.
