Today, Sunday, Israeli settlers uprooted and looted around 190 Palestinian olive trees. They also vandalized an agricultural land west of Salfit, in the West Bank.
A number of Palestinian farmers stressed that the settlers of Ali Zahav settlement, which is built on Palestinian lands, uprooted and broke 2-10 years old olive trees. They also broke and vandalized an agricultural land owned by Najih Harb, poured water on the land, and stole 40 olive seedlings.
The farmers also said that this area had witnessed repeated attacks by settlers for settlement expansion purposes and to force the people to leave their lands.
Salfit Governor Abdullah Kamil said that the racist settlement expansion on large areas of the governorate’s lands is significantly increasing on a daily basis. He also added that settlers launch daily attacks against Palestinian civilians and their properties and agricultural lands under the protection of the occupation forces.
The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wencesland, had recently expressed his concern over the continued “settler violence”, saying “I am concerned about the destabilizing deterioration of the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory continues in the absence of political solutions that would “reset the trajectory”.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in 2020, a total of 358 attacks were carried out, compared to 496 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in 2021, resulting in 370 property damage and 126 injuries.
According to Israeli non-governmental data; there are about 666,000 settlers, 145 large settlements and 140 random outposts in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
