Alwaght- Zionists settlers stole olive harvest of Palestinian farmers in two separate attacks in Ramallah and Nablus in occupied West Bank.
Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activities in the north of the West Bank, said that the illegal Zionist settlers robbed the olive harvest of a Palestinian farmer in the village of al-Janiya, west of Ramallah, and others stole olive harvest of another Palestinian farmer from al-Sawiya near Nablus.
Meanwhile, anti-settlement activist, Bashar al-Qaryouti, told Quds Press that a group of Zionist settlers from the illegal settlements of Shiloh and Elite attacked today many Palestinian farmers from occupied village of Qaryut while they were harvesting olive crops from their lands.
He pointed out that some Palestinian farmers were exposed to death while on the way to work in their agricultural lands, after Israeli settlers have closed the roads leading to their lands with stones and earth mounds.
Palestinians look forward to the annual olive harvest season, which is a major income source for thousands of Palestinian families in the West Bank.
In addition to stealing olive harvest from Palestinian farmers, many lands planted with olive trees are closed to farmers due to their proximity to illegal Israeli settlements or because they fall behind the Israeli apartheid wall.
The illegal Zionist settlers have been escalating violations against the Palestinian farmers, through burning their lands, as the olive harvest season approaches, the Palestinian official noted.
“The Israeli violations have caused the farmers major losses forcing them to leave their lands,” he stressed.
The number of olive trees in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip amounts to 8.5 million trees, according to the Palestinian agriculture ministry, which revealed that the olive and oil revenues represent one per cent of Palestine’s national income.
Israeli authorities uproot olive trees to facilitate the expansion of Israeli settlements and for the construction of the apartheid Wall which runs deep inside the West Bank. Settlements in the West Bank are considered illegal internationally — yet have continued to expand, and in the past 20 years, have more than doubled in size.
