Palestinian farmers from Qarawat Bani Hassan town northwest of Salfit in the occupied West Bank have complained of tight Israeli restrictions on their access to their olive groves during the current harvest season.
Farmers told the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) that the Israeli occupation army continued to close an important agricultural road used to facilitate their access to their lands and their work during the olive harvest season.
One of the farmers said that the industrial and residential settlement of Barkan devoured vast tracts of the town’s land while the Israeli army persists in imposing restrictions on the movement of local farmers every season.
For his part anti-settlement specialist Khaled Maali said that the Israeli army and settlers continue to tighten the screws on Palestinian farmers during the olive season and make it difficult for them to reach their lands especially those located behind the separation wall.
Maali said that the Jewish settlers brutalize local farmers and burn and destroy their olive trees or saplings almost on a daily basis in the West Bank but they intensify such assaults during the harvest season.
