Israel settlers attack Palestinian farmers, vandalise homes during olive harvest

Israeli settlers, backed by occupation forces, assaulted Palestinian farmers harvesting olives in the town of Qusra, south of Nablus, in the northern Occupied West Bank.

According to human rights activist, Fouad Hassan, the settlers, shielded by the military, fired live rounds while attacking farmers and vandalising homes in the area. Yesterday, settlers also destroyed dozens of olive trees owned by a resident of Qusra.

In a separate incident earlier today, Israeli forces forced farmers in Beit Furik, east of Nablus, to abandon their olive fields. As the olive harvest season begins in Nablus villages and towns, attacks by settlers under military protection have intensified, reported Wafa news agency.

These assaults by the occupation forces come after Israel’s far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to cancel the olive harvest season in the West Bank.

Many Palestinian farming families have been cultivating olive trees for decades, even centuries, and depend on the olive harvest for their livelihood. “Approximately one million olive trees, many of which were centuries old, have been uprooted by Israel since 1967,” Saad Dagher, a Palestinian agronomist in the Occupied West Bank, told journalist, Carolina S Pedrazzi, last year.

“They don’t only uproot them on the pretext that they need to make space for settlements or other Occupation infrastructure. They also claim that the olive trees represent ‘security threats’ towards Israelis, as trees are posts behind which Palestinians hide to target soldiers. It’s madness.”

Moreover, in a statement released yesterday, the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the violent attacks and theft of olives by armed Jewish settler militias in various parts of the Occupied West Bank. It also denounced the burning and cutting down of hundreds of olive trees, as well as the denial of access to lands, describing these actions as organised state terrorism within the framework of the Occupation’s campaign of ethnic cleansing and displacement, aimed at preventing the establishment of a Palestinian State.

The Ministry added that the Israeli Occupation, through its exploitation of the West Bank, land seizures and the intensification of its crime of ethnic cleansing, particularly in Area C, which makes up the majority of the Occupied West Bank, seeks to deepen its annexation of the Territory and entrench its apartheid system.

READ: Palestinians call for protection from settlers during olive harvest