A horde of Jewish settlers on Tuesday morning wreaked havoc on dozens of olive trees in the northwest of Nablus and built a dirt road near the illegal settlement of Shavei Shomron.
Local official Ghassan Daghlas said that local farmers walked in the morning to their groves in the area which was fenced a few years ago by the Israeli army to find out that dozens of trees had been chopped off.
Daghlas added that settlers also built a road near the settlement of Shavei Shomron.
On Monday settlers set fire to swaths of cultivated land in Burqa town north of Nablus.
According to local sources a group of settles set aflame swaths of agricultural land in al-Manshara area near the evacuated settlement of Homesh — which was established on land belonging to the village of Burqa in the northwest of Nablus before it was dismantled in 2005.
Later local residents rushed to the area to control the fire.
Earlier on the same day settlers went on the rampage on a West Bank olive grove destroying its trees and stealing its drupes.
Local sources said that the settlers destroyed over 100 olive trees in Jalud village southeast of Nablus adding that they also stole olive drupes and sprayed chemicals on many trees.
Since the current olive harvest season began settlers have destroyed and burned dozens of olive trees across the West Bank.
Jewish settler violence peaks every harvest season when Palestinians need to access their land to pick olives off their trees.
Every year human rights group 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.
