A horde of armed Jewish settlers on Saturday morning prevented Palestinian farmers at gunpoint from picking olives from their groves in Burin village south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Local official Ghassan Daghlas said that settlers working as guards at the illegal settlement of Yitzhar pointed their guns at Burin farmers as they were gathering olives from their own groves and forced them to leave the area.
The olive harvest is a key economic social and cultural event for Palestinians so Jewish settlers do not let a year go by without attacking Palestinian farmers and their property — brutalizing them blocking their access to their own olive groves stealing crops and damaging or burning trees and farming equipment etc.
According to human rights group B’Tselem settler violence could not have taken place without strong support provided by the Israeli government – not only during the harvest season but throughout the entire year.
“The vast majority of such cases are never investigated and no one is held accountable for the harm caused to Palestinians. When investigations are launched they invariably end with no action taken against the perpetrators. In the rare event an indictment is filed – the charges do not match the severity of the acts and the defendants are given ludicrous sentences” B’Tselem explained.
“Israeli security forces are often present when settlers attack Palestinians yet instead of protecting the victims they provide the assailants with backup and protection and in some cases even assault the farmers themselves. Frequently when Palestinians try to protect their property soldiers disperse them with tear gas canisters and stun grenades and sometimes open fire at them with rubber-coated metal bullets or even live bullets. This happens all year round including during the olive harvest” it added.
