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- 3 nov 2010
In photos: Olives hit the presses
Palestinian women bottle freshly pressed olive oil and can pickled olives to be sold at the Olive Harvest Festival in the West Bank city of Bethlehem, 30 October 2010.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=330616 14 jan 2012, 17:19 , Respect -
Maria 5 nov 2010
Fires in West Bank destroy 300 olive trees
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Firefighters controlled blazes in several villages throughout the week which had burned around 300 olive trees, a civil defense report said.
Civil defense crews also extinguished fires in two cars in Qalqiliya and Dura, the report added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=331104 14 jan 2012, 17:22 , Respect -
Maria 15 nov 2010
Palestinians say settlers torched olive trees
NABLUS (AFP) -- Residents of a Nablus village said that Israeli settlers burned about 200 of their olive trees on Sunday and also torched surrounding grazing land.
Settlers denied the allegations.
The alleged attackers were seen heading in the direction of the nearby Elon Moreh settlement after setting fire to the trees on land owned by residents of Salem, village council spokesman Adli Ishtayeh said.
He said that the trees were on ground adjoining the settlement and, for reasons of Israeli security, kept off limits to their owners for most of the time. He said that the Israeli army, which polices the area, had been notified.
A military spokesman said no complaint against the settlers had been made and that troops on the scene were treating the incident "as a fire, not arson" after unseasonably hot and dry weather.
Settler spokesman David Haivri said Palestinian farmers themselves had been burning dead wood.
"After checking with local security and leaders of the town of Elon Moreh, no unusual events were recorded today in the area," he said.
"We are not aware of more then some small-scale smoke resulting from farmers burning branches from their own pruning after the harvest."
Since the start of the olive harvest last month, there have been scores of Palestinian complaints about settlers cutting down trees, stealing olives or preventing farmers from harvesting their crops, rights groups and police say.
A senior Israeli intelligence officer acknowledged that there had been acts of violence and vandalism by Jews in the West Bank, noting in particular recent attacks against mosques there.
"We are not happy about the situation connected with Jewish extremists in the West Bank," he told a group of foreign journalists on Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"It needs big efforts in order to stop this wave of violence. We know who are these people. Hopefully we will be able to stop this wave of violence," he added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=333780 14 jan 2012, 17:24 , Respect -
Maria 16 nov 2010
Watch: Footage contradicts arson allegations
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lc-mM2_7uAo
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- International solidarity activists hit back this week at allegations broadcast in Israeli media that they and Palestinian farmers set fire to "state land" in the occupied West Bank.
Ynet news and Arutz Sheva, two Israeli media outlets, reported Sunday that "leftists" and "foreign anarchists" were caught in an arson attempt near an illegal settlement between Bethlehem and Hebron.
"Residents who witnessed the incident said they [believed] the group was planning to blame the arson attack on the Jews," Arutz Sheva reported alongside video footage it and Ynet broadcast as evidence.
A dozen people "can be seen wandering around the field, stopping occasionally to bend over and set new fires. The group does not appear anxious, and does nothing to extinguish the flames," the report continued.
Those present, however, have dismissed the reports as nonsensical and point to new footage, filmed on the ground rather than the hillside where settlers taped and later edited their "arson" evidence.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rogeJP06EBA
A senior Israeli intelligence officer acknowledged that there had been acts of violence and vandalism by Jews in the West Bank, noting in particular recent attacks against mosques there.
"We are not happy about the situation connected with Jewish extremists in the West Bank," he told a group of foreign journalists on Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
But the witness to the event in Saffa said his footage showed Israeli authorities working with settlers to target farmers. He spotted Bet Ayin settlers on a hilltop overlooking the scene, and he filmed them communicating with others including, according to locals, intelligence officials who routinely operate in the area.
Soldiers soon arrived, and they arrested six of the eight internationals. "None of us was provided an explanation of why we were arrested, but rather just told to get in the jeeps by aggressive soldiers," the witness said. The internationals were interrogated and lectured, and their passports were photocopied.
Meanwhile, "They called for all of the land owners to come and, in the photos on the digital camera LCD, point out what they owned. The farmers also had their ownership deeds with them," he added. The Palestinians were not detained; the authorities seemed satisfied with their ownership claims.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi7jXP9sOWU
In other parts of the footage, an international can be heard asking a soldier why he was being detained. The soldiers never explained why, and none of the internationals was ever charged with a crime.
Settlers reacted to the footage by saying it only reinforced their initial allegations, and applauded Ma'an for "detailing the activities of international, left-wing activists in the Shomron and Yehuda."
"The report has provided further video evidence that these activists set fires to agricultural lands and state unequivocally that this 'is typical among farmers across the West Bank,'" David Ha'ivri, the director of the northern West Bank's Shomron Liaison Office, said in a statement.
Ha'ivri added that "these fires are routinely blamed on Jewish settlers without a modicum of evidence supporting these claims. We look forward to and credit Maan News Agency for its continued reporting which further supports and confirms the acts of arson by international provocateurs."
George Hale and AFP contributed to this report.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=333775 14 jan 2012, 17:35 , Respect -
Maria 17 nov 2010
Settlers blamed for fire near Nablus
NABLUS (Ma’an) -- Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian farmland between the West Bank cities of Nablus and Qalqiliya on Tuesday, officials said.
Ghassan Dughlus, the Palestinian Authority official monitoring settler activity in the northern West Bank, said Israelis from the settlement of Givat Gilad set fires in the village of Jit.
He said about 100 trees were burned in the blaze.
Mayor Nasser As-Sida told Ma'an that Israeli soldiers bared villagers from going to the land in order to put out the fire.
David Ha'ivri, an Israeli settler leader, dismissed the suggestion that Israelis started the fire.
"Leadership of the community of Havat Gilad accuse Arab residents of Jit of causing the fire that burnt fields and endangered homes in Havat Gilad. Jewish residents who tried to put out the fire reported that they were assaulted by Arabs who threw rocks at them. The IDF detained one Arab who threw stones and later released him," Ha'ivri said in a statement.
"The fire was apparently caused by local Arab farmers who burned tree cuttings and bush. Recently activist groups released their own video footage of that type of work. The weather is very hot and windy and fires can easily get out of control," he added. "Were the fires not so dangerous, the repeated attempts to blame the Jews for fires caused by the Arab farmers would be laughable."
The alleged torching of the field by settlers comes after a series of documented cases of settler vandalism targeting Palestinian olive groves during the recent olive harvesting season.
At the end of October, four human rights organizations released a report on a project documenting settler vandalism during the 2010 olive harvest, reporting a total of 35 incidents of tree vandalism during the six-week season.
The organizations, all based in Israel, included The Association of Civil Rights in Israel, B'Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights and Yesh Din. Following the documentation effort the group sent an urgent letter to senior Israeli military commanders, calling on the commanders to take all necessary steps to ensure that Palestinians and their properties were protected from violence and damage during the remainder of the season.
While one settler leader denied the claims made by the report, he focused blame on the rights organizations, saying the organizations "derive their existence from continued conflict. If the conflict were to end, they would lose their raison d'etre. Therefore, if there is no conflict to report on or save 'oppressed' peoples from, it must be artificially created."
A second report from the PLO office in Jericho said it had tracked a sharp increase in assaults on Palestinians and vandalism of property during the month of October.
According to the report, Palestinians in the West Bank reported a total of 277 cases of settler violence from August through October 2010, with a sharp increase in incidents in the last weeks of October.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=333963 14 jan 2012, 17:37 , Respect -
Maria 14 jan 2012, 17:39 , Respect -
Maria 28 nov 2010
Fires extinguished in Jenin
JENIN (Ma’an) -- Firefighters controlled a large fire late Saturday which erupted in an olive and almond grove in the northern West Bank.
The fire, between the villages of Jaba and Beit Imrin in Jenin, damaged 350 trees, civil defense officials said Sunday.
Efforts were underway to extinguish other fires caused by unseasonably dry weather in Salfit, another city in the northern West Bank.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=336667 14 jan 2012, 17:40 , Respect -
Maria 30 nov 2010
Settlers torch olive trees south of Nablus
NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Residents of illegal settlements in the Nablus district set fire to olive trees on Tuesday, a Palestinian Authority official said.
Ghassan Doughlas, who holds the settlements file for the northern West Bank, said settlers from Yizhar settlement torched trees on land belonging to Madama and Asira villages south of Nablus.
Palestinian fire fighters extinguished the blaze, he added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=337538 14 jan 2012, 17:44 , Respect -
Maria 30 nov 2011
Israeli forces uproot 100 olives trees in Salfit
SALFIT, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) destroyed 100 olive trees in the Salfit village of Masha to make way for building a section of the separation wall, local sources said on Wednesday.
Farmer Mohammed Amer appealed for an end to the destruction of his olive trees, charging that the IOF soldiers were destroying the trees to expand the nearby Jewish settlement of Ornet.
He told the media that he was stunned when he arrived at the site to witness IOF bulldozers uprooting his trees, adding that most probably the act started since yesterday.
He said that the IOF soldiers’ destruction streak covered hundreds of dunums of cultivated land owned by farmers in Masha and Azzun Atma.
http://fwd4.me/0hlI 14 jan 2012, 17:45 , Respect -
Maria 30 nov 2011
More Israeli Raids and Arrests near Hebron, Farmers Given 45 Days to Uproot Own Trees
On Wednesday, Israeli forces raided Beit Omar village, northwest of Hebron, and arrested three citizens. Israel has increased its encroachments into Beit Omar, often targeting children. Out of the 16 people arrested in the village, 13 were children.
Eyewitnesses told the official Palestinian news wire Wafa that Israeli forces raided and searched houses in the al-Bayadeh and Wadi al-Sheikh neighborhoods. The houses belonged to
--17-year-old Rashid Mohamad Issa Awad,
--22-year-old Mahamad Mahmoud Mahamad Ikhlil, and
--17-year old Yasser Faiz Mohamad Abu Fanous.
The three individuals were detained and taken to Etzion military detention center.
The soldiers arrested Rafeq Abdul Razaq Jaradat and Umar al-Sheikh Bhis from the villages of Sa'eer and Yatta, respectively.
Israeli forces also arrested 32-year-old Marwan Ahmed Sakharneh from Beit Ola village west of Hebron. The soldiers confiscated his tractor while he was plowing the lands in the Enjasat area, near the Israeli separation wall.
The towns and villages of Arabeh, Kufur Ra’e, al-Zawyeh, Anzeh, and Fahmeh were also raided but no arrests were recorded.
Israeli forces handed out demolition notices to the residents of Sourif, a village near Hebron. Activist Yousef Abu Maria told Wafa that the Israelis gave notices to Jamal Mohamad al-Qadi and Ibrahim Abdul Hadi Hamedat, informing them that their irrigation well and dozens of olive and almond trees would be destroyed. The well and trees are located in a 12-dunum (3 acre) plot of land near the separation wall. The soldiers gave al-Qadi and Hamedat 45 days to uproot their trees before bulldozers demolish them.
http://fwd4.me/0hm0 14 jan 2012, 17:46 , Respect -
Maria 5 nov 2010
Adding insult to injury
A Palestinian family's olive-picking was interrupted by angry settlers, who ended up receiving the output.
It was nothing more than a sack full of olives - 50 kilograms of them, freshly picked from trees that had been cultivated for years. Only 25 trees remains today in the grove of 300 trees planted in the 1980s, which have been damaged or uprooted over the years by settlers.
In this case, members of the Abu Sabha family from the village of Yatta, south of Hebron, picked the olives, the settlers attacked them - and the police gave the sack to the settlers. Adding insult to injury, the police detained two members of the family, but not a single one of the attackers.
According to data that Haaretz recently publicized, the current olive season in the territories is the most violent one in years. Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights found that over the past five years, police have opened 97 investigations into damage to Palestinian groves by settlers, yet not a single one resulted in an indictment.
"Did they return the olives?" we ask Hamad Abu Sabha, 71. "To where?" he asks, with a bitter grin. "The settlers ate them all." Wearing a galabiya and a kaffiyeh, with eyeglasses he purchased in Jordan, the elderly farmer greets us in front of his stone house, barefoot and leaning on a walking stick.
On Friday, October 22, his family went by truck to their grove to harvest olives. In recent years it has become difficult for them to reach their plot, located a few hundred meters from the fence of the settlement of Susya.
A week earlier, some settlers had thrown rocks at their truck and damaged it. On that particular day, they arrived at the grove at 10 A.M., accompanied by activists from the Taayush Arab-Jewish coexistence organization. One of them, a plumber from Be'er Sheva named Ezra Nawi, deserves mention for helping the Palestinians pick their olives.
After about an hour of olive-picking, a red Nissan jeep suddenly approached from Susya, with two people inside. One got out and started slashing the tires of the Abu Sabhas' truck with a knife, family members said.
A few minutes later, another four settlers, wearing masks, arrived and started throwing rocks at them. Nawi was hit in the leg, and the hooligans shattered the truck's lights and damaged the windshield. Younger members of the family retaliated by throwing stones.
Nawi called the police, and shortly afterward officers from the Israel Defense Forces, Border Police and the police arrived on the scene. The four masked settlers fled; only the two men in the jeep remained.
The police immediately apprehended 17-year-old Marwan Abu Sabha, who had a rock in his hand. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and he was blindfolded and forced to sit under one of the trees. His mother Sumiya tried in vain to persuade the soldiers and policemen to free him, but they would not let her approach.
Meanwhile, someone apparently videotaped the whole scene. The video shows the family arriving, setting up a blanket and ladder, and picking olives. Then the jeep drives up and later the masked men. The footage also shows the tires being slashed, soldiers arriving and the masked men racing back to Susya.
Somebody calls out to the soldiers, "Catch them!" - but they do nothing, gazing apathetically at the fleeing men. After apprehending Marwan, the soldiers are seen standing over the high-schooler, their rifles dangling, and chasing Sumiya away.
By Gideon Levy
http://bit.ly/9DwI0t 14 jan 2012, 17:46 , Respect -
Maria 5 nov 2010
Fires in West Bank destroy 300 olive trees
RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Firefighters controlled blazes in several villages throughout the week which had burned around 300 olive trees, a civil defense report said.
Civil defense crews also extinguished fires in two cars in Qalqiliya and Dura, the report added.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=331104 14 jan 2012, 17:47 , Respect -
Maria 2 dec 2010
Official: Settlers set fire to West Bank land
NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian-owned olive groves near the evacuated settlement of Homesh, near the West Bank city of Nablus Thursday, a Palestinian Authority official said.
Ghasan Daghlas, who is charged with monitoring settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma'an: "The settlers set fire in the area of Khahlet Awana, adjacent to evacuated settlement."
He said Palestinians are banned from entering the area because of the presence of an Israeli military installation.
He said 10 dunums of land had caught fire.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=338377 14 jan 2012, 17:47 , Respect -
Maria 3 dec 2010
Palestinian olive groves set on fire
A farmer inspects damage to his olive groves in Nablus.
Israeli settlers have set fire to Palestinian olive groves near the evacuated illegal settlement of Homesh, near the West Bank city of Nablus.
The Thursday incident was confirmed by a Palestinian Authority (PA) official, Ghasan Daghlas, who is charged with monitoring settlement activity in the northern West Bank.
He said that the Jewish settlers set fire to the Palestinian-owned olive groves in the area of Khahlet Awana, incurring heavy loss to the Palestinian farmers, Maan reported.
Palestinians say it is another sign that extremists are targeting a key product of the Palestinian economy.
Palestinians say that settlers usually use this method, many times with the help of Israeli soldiers, to take over their land.
According to human rights groups and local Palestinians, over 70 complaints have been filed over the past four years about damage to Palestinians' trees.
They also say that since the start of the olive harvest, Israelis have often bveen seen cutting down trees, stealing olives, and harassing farmers when they sought to harvest their crops.
http://www.presstv.com/detail/153689.html 14 jan 2012, 17:48 , Respect -
Maria 23 dec 2010
Yitzhar settlers blamed for attack on farmers
NABLUS (Ma’an) -- Officials from the northern West Bank village of Madama accused settlers from the neighboring Israeli colony of Yitzhar of attacking a group of farmers ploughing lands near the settlement fence on Thursday morning.
Hasan Zeyadeh, member of the Madma village council, said the farmers were on lands south of the village when a group of religious Jews approached them, throwing rocks and shouting abuses, and telling them to leave the area.
Farmers grew angry, he said, and thew stones back at the group of men, who eventually left the area.
Zeyadeh said it was the second incidence of settler violence in the area in 24 hours, adding that the night before a military jeep prevented farmers from reaching the same area of land the day before. When farmers returned in the evening, they found several olive trees uprooted.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=344669