Israel razes lands, destroys crops in Rahat

Back dropped by an Israeli bulldozer, a Palestinian woman picks olives from a tree 06 October 2004 in the West Bank village of Beit Awwa in the Hebron area [HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images]

Israeli occupation bulldozers yesterday razed hundreds of dunams of farmland and destroyed crops in Israeli-Arab city of Rahat, Arab48 reported.

Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli bulldozers and staff from the Israeli Land Authority raided the city under the full protection of the Israeli Police Special Forces, which prevented the farms’ owners from reaching them.

Rebhi Eltayyef told Arab48 news website that the Israeli occupation razed the lands and destroyed the crops near the industrial zone in the east of the city.

He said that they destroyed hundreds of dunams of wheat crops without a giving the owners notice.

“The fascist gangs even razed the cemetery of my family without respecting the sanctity of the dead buried there, some of them had been killed at the hands of the Zionist gangs,” he said.

Arab48 said that this Israeli raid is part of a plan to expropriate Arab lands in Israel, destroy homes and crops and then plant trees to form part of state-owned land or nature reserves.

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