- 26 oct 2011
PA: Settlers prevent farmers from harvesting olives
Correction appended
NABLUS (Ma’an) -- Settlers prevented farmers from picking olives on Wednesday in a Nablus village, a Palestinian Authority official said.
PA settlement affairs official Ghassan Doughlas said villagers in Huwwara were prevented from accessing their land near the notorious Yitzhar settlement south of Nablus, despite having approved coordination between Israeli authorities, the official news agency Wafa reported.
Settler attacks against West Bank communities increase annually around the olive harvest.
On Monday, the PA criticized ongoing settler assaults on Palestinians harvesting olives in Qalqiliya, Nablus, Salfit and Ramallah, and said settlers shot at villagers harvesting olives in Jaloud near Nablus on Friday, injuring four, including a 12-year-old boy.
"Israeli violations against Palestinians and their property and livelihood continue to increase with little or no action by the Israeli authorities to hold people to account under the rule of law," a government statement said.
Last week, Oxfam and local organizations calculated that settler violence against olive trees and agricultural land has cost Palestinian farmers an estimated $500,000 this year, based on reports by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the Palestinian Authority Ministry of National Economy and the Applied Research Institute- Jerusalem.
Since 1967, 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted resulting in a loss of around $55 million to the Palestinian economy, according to a report by the PA ministry and ARIJ.
Over 2,500 olive trees were destroyed in September and 7,500 this year, UN OCHA reports.
Despite being illegal under international law, Israel has built and expanded settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank since its occupation of the territory in 1967.
Settler violence against Palestinian communities is a common feature of this forced co-existence and is rarely held accountable by the Israeli legal system.
(This version clarifies the sources for Oxfam's estimates of losses to the Palestinian economy and the number of olive trees destroyed.)
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=432526 14 jan 2012, 20:28 , Respect -
Maria 26 oct 2011
In photos: West Bank olive harvest
Palestinian farmers sort and process harvested olives at a grove near Farha village, north of the West Bank city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, on Oct. 25, 2011.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=432776 14 jan 2012, 20:33 , Respect -
Maria 26 oct 2011
Israeli Forces Prevent Volunteering Journalists from Picking Olives
NABLUS, October 26, 2011 (WAFA) – Israeli soldiers prevented Wednesday a delegation from the ministry of information from participating in olive picking in Deir al-Hatab, a village east of Nablus in the northern West Bank, according to a press release issued by the ministry.
The delegation, which included a number of the ministry’s journalists and reporters, said that the Israeli soldiers intercepted their way and prevented them from helping Deir al-Hatab residents in picking the olive harvest.
The release said that the ministry and within its ongoing activities to support marginalized areas through journalism tours, decided to send this tour to Deir al-Hatab, in solidarity with its residents to help them harvest olives.
These activities send a clear message to Israel that the Palestinians support each other, and enable the journalists to expose the Israeli violations against the Palestinian olive pickers, the release said.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=17885
14 jan 2012, 20:34 , Respect -
Maria 27 oct 2011
Police: Settlers uproot olive trees in Jerusalem
BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Israeli settlers uprooted some 20 olive trees in southern Jerusalem, police said Thursday.
Luba al-Samri, police representative for Arabic media, said the settlers uprooted 20 trees in the Beit Safafa area of Jerusalem.
Al-Samri told Ma’an the settlers left a banner with "price tag" written on it.
Israeli police are investigating the incident, al-Samri added.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld told AFP the incident took place "in the courtyard of an Arab house" on the outskirts of Beit Safafa, and the investigation had yet to apprehend any suspects.
Israel's Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat strongly condemned Thursday's incident, and said that "no tolerance should be shown to violence of any nature. We will continue to maintain coexistence in the city," public radio reported.
"Price tag" is the slogan used by extremist Jews in attacks against Palestinians in revenge for policies they say harm their interests.
Usually such attacks are by Jewish settlers against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, but in October a mosque in northern Israel was torched and graves in a Muslim and Christian cemetery in Jaffa were defaced, both bearing "price tag" slogans.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433075 14 jan 2012, 20:37 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2011
Police investigating Qalqiliya village fire
QALQILIYA (Ma'an) -- A fire that destroyed olive trees on land east of Azzun village near Qalqiliya on Friday night has been put out by Civil Defense forces.
Police opened an investigation into whether the blaze was due to negligence or arson, a press statement said.
Azzun village, west of Qalqiliya in the northern West Bank, lies between Jewish-only settlements Alfe Menashe and Maale Shomeron, and has been the target of repeated Israeli detention raids in recent months.
More than 30 villagers have been detained by Israeli forces since June.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433307 14 jan 2012, 20:39 , Respect -
Maria 29 oct 2011
Official: Settlers block Nablus villagers from land
NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Dozens of settlers accompanied by guard dogs blocked farmers from accessing olive tree groves near their Nablus village on Saturday morning, a Palestinian Authority official said.
PA settlement affairs official Ghassan Doughlas told Ma'an the clashes broke out between settlers from Elon Moreh and farmers from Azmut, east of Nablus.
No injuries were reported.
A family in neighboring village Beit Furik said Thursday that settlers blew up a room in their home and firebombed their jeep. A gas tank was dragged into the living room and set on fire, they said.
Parties are meeting in Nablus to form committees to protect homes, a Palestinian official said.
Israeli police, meanwhile, have opened an investigation into a separate incident in south Jerusalem in which right-wing activists were blamed for uprooting 20 olive trees.
Luba al-Samri, a police representative for Arabic media, said the settlers uprooted 20 trees in the Beit Safafa area of Jerusalem and left a banner with "price tag" written on it.
On Monday, the PA criticized settler assaults on Palestinians harvesting olives.
"Israeli violations against Palestinians and their property and livelihood continue to increase with little or no action by the Israeli authorities to hold people to account under the rule of law," a PA statement said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=433325 14 jan 2012, 20:41 , Respect -
Maria 31 oct 2011
PARC: Settlers burn 2600 Palestinian olive trees in October
RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The Palestinian agricultural relief committee (PARC) said that Jewish settlers had burnt 2600 Palestinian olive trees in October, assessing the Palestinian farmers’ damages as a result at around 156000 dollars.
The committee said in its monthly report issued on Monday that the Palestinians lost on average 3.5 olive trees per hour in October either through incineration or destruction.
It noted that 53% of the losses were sustained in Nablus province followed by Salfit province at 24%, adding that most of the attacks were carried out by settlers with some of them committed by Israeli occupation soldiers.
PARC said that the damage covered 2440 dunums of land while pointing to the fact that 13 farmers were injured in the settlers’ attacks in the same month mostly in Nablus, and recorded 13 incidents in which farmers were denied access to their land.
http://fwd4.me/0fxd
14 jan 2012, 20:41 , Respect -
Maria 2 nov 2011
Bitter olive harvest adds to animosity
By Crispian Balmer
AWARTA (Reuters) -- A potent symbol of peace and harmony, the olive has become a source of confrontation and violence in the decades-old conflict that pits Israel against Palestinians.
Once a time of happy industry, the autumn harvest season in particular has degenerated into antagonism, with farmers accusing extremist Jewish settlers of destroying their crops and trying to seize their land.
Nawaf Thawabteh said he had barely started picking his oil-rich fruit in early October on a rocky hilltop near the Elon Moreh settlement when three masked men brandishing clubs charged through his orchard and grabbed his half-filled sacks.
"The army was meant to be here to protect us, but there was no one around. It is just getting worse and worse," said Thawabteh, sitting beneath one of his trees, with the West Bank city of Nablus shimmering in the distance.
An estimated 10 million olive trees dot the Israeli-occupied West Bank, thriving in the arid climate and covering 45 percent of all agricultural land in the region.
But settler attacks are taking their toll, says the United Nations, which has recorded a surge in general violence this year. Vandals have not only snatched harvested olives, but also destroyed thousands of trees.
The UN body for humanitarian affairs, OCHA, says 7,500 trees were uprooted, burnt or chopped down in the first nine months of 2011. The Palestinian Authority says 800,000 trees have been destroyed since the 1967 war, when Israel seized the territory.
The Israeli army, which controls security in most of the West Bank, says it takes farmer protection seriously and plans for the harvest as though it were a military operation.
One of the top commanders in the territory agrees that settler violence poses a real problem, but says it is tough to eradicate what he believes to be random acts of criminality.
"It is very hard to catch the vandals. We have 10 million trees here and can't defend all 10 million. It is not our only problem," said the commander, who declined to be named.
"Ninety nine percent of settlers maintain law and order. ... Unfortunately one percent, or maybe less, support these people," he added, speaking from his West Bank headquarters.
Settlement killings
Palestinians question the army's commitment to defending their farmers, pointing to the fact that few vandals are ever caught. The Israeli NGO Yesh Din says that of 127 cases of tree destruction it has followed since 2005, only one ended in court.
Some 350,000 Israeli settlers live in the territory, claiming a biblical birthright to the Palestinian land.
Peace talks aimed at ending the conflict broke down last year following a dispute over Jewish settlement building and repeated attempts to revive the negotiations have failed. In the meantime, the construction work continues.
OCHA says there are some 135 settlements. They are deemed illegal by the World Court, something Israel disputes, and often abut agricultural land farmed by Palestinians for generations.
The communities are ringed with security fences and the army has set up wide buffer zones, giving farmers a limited time frame to enter the fields and take care of the crops under their supervision.
Even within those set periods, violence can flare.
When Nizam Qawarek, 37, was told by commanders that he could go and collect olives near the Itamar settlement, close to Nablus, he immediately rushed to his silvery green trees.
He and his wife had barely begun work before they were confronted by dozens of angry residents from Itamar. "They were waving Israeli flags and shouting there shouldn't be any Arabs here. They threw stones at us. It was terrifying," he said.
Itamar residents justified their actions, saying they didn't want Palestinians near their property following the murder in March of five members of one family, including two children and a baby, who were stabbed to death in their house.
Two local Palestinian youths have admitted to the killings.
"Only six months after the murder, while our blood is still boiling and the residents are still caring for their bleeding wounds, allowing anyone from the Awarta village, where the murderers ... came from, is outrageous and negligent," Itamar rabbi, Avichai Rozenki, said in a statement.
The settlers say the killers used last year's harvest to spy on Itamar from up close and find a way to break in.
Settler leaders say talk of widespread destruction is wildly exaggerated.
"The announcements that are going out almost daily about damage caused to Arab land and olive groves is totally incredible. If true, it would be visible, everywhere. But it is not," said settler spokesman David Haivri.
"Most of people here, Jews and non-Jews, are interested in living out their lives and raising their families peacefully," added Haivri, who has been in the West Bank for over 20 years.
Counting the cost
British charity Oxfam estimates that olive output accounts for 15-19 percent of agricultural production in the territory, generating revenues of $160-190 million and guaranteeing livelihoods for the families of some 100,000 farmers.
The farmers maintain that the aggression is all part of a concerted effort to sweep them from the sun-soaked land.
Maazoza Zaben says settlers torched 270 of her trees in Burin in September, leaving an ugly black smear across the hill.
"They want us to leave the land. It will be easier to chase us away if we don't have our trees. But even if they kill me, I won't leave this place," said the 58-year-old widow.
Farmers who have land near settlements and the West Bank separation wall say they have to count the cost not just of trashed trees, but also of restrictions on access rights.
Outside the harvesting season, the army says it does not have the resources to oversee the pruning and plowing that is vital to keep the groves healthy and prevent thick thorn bushes from taking root between the gnarled, squat trees.
The day he was chased from his land, Qawarek also lost 30 trees near the Itamar settlement fence in an unexplained blaze.
Having been prevented from plowing, Qawarek stood helplessly by as the flames lept from tree to tree, roaring along the parched thorns like electricity surging through wires.
The army says limited manpower also means it cannot provide security to everyone at the height of the autumn harvest. As a result, it opens the season early and offers villagers far less time than they would like to collect the green and black olives.
"The trees would be perfect in two or three weeks time," said Mohamed Shamih, 47, who had been given the all-clear to go to his trees near Elon Moreh in early October.
"I will get 50 percent less oil by harvesting now, but that is better than losing the lot," he added.
Local children take time off school and much of the village turns out to help pluck the olives from the trees, some of which date back 2,000 years to the Roman era, but even the mass mobilization won't be enough to bring home all the fruit.
"I will have to return to my own land like a thief to try and get the rest," Shamih said, sitting atop his tractor.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=434630 14 jan 2012, 20:44 , Respect -
Maria 8 nov 2011
Settlers 'chop down 30 olive trees' in Nablus
NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Israeli settlers chopped down more than 30 trees in Madama village south of Nablus on Monday, a local official said.
Village council head Ihab Tahseen said residents from Yitzhar settlement destroyed Palestinian-owned trees and sprayed anti-Arab slogans in Hebrew.
He urged international human rights organizations to intervene in settlers' continuous attacks on Palestinian property.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Jewish settlers to act with restraint on Monday after 12 were arrested for attacking Israeli police and soldiers.
Settlers are rarely arrested for violent attacks directed at Palestinians.
The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, which documents settler attacks in the West Bank, says: "Israeli security forces have done little to prevent settler violence or to arrest offenders."
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=435496 14 jan 2012, 20:46 , Respect - 20 nov 2011
Settlement’s Waste Water Destroys Olive Trees
SALFIT, (WAFA) – Waste water from Revava settlement, which is established on the land of Deir Estia, near Salfit in the northern West Bank, completely destroyed 20 olive trees and flooded another 100 trees in Palestinian land around the settlement, Sunday said a local official.
Nazmi Salman, mayor of Deir Estia, said the waste water is threatening hundreds of dunums (1 dunum=1000 square meters) of land planted with olive trees in the western valley area to the west of the town, adding that farmers couldn’t harvest the 100 olive trees that were flooded.
He said the municipality filed several complaints to stop the settlers’ assaults against the land but to no avail.
Dawoud Fares, owner of the damaged trees, was repeatedly assaulted by settlers before, including a physical attack and the arson of almost 300 olive plants in his land, added Salman.
Maria 23 nov 2011
Medics: Farmers hospitalized after Israel rips up land-
QALQILIYA (Ma’an) – Three Palestinian farmers collapsed and required medical attention Wednesday when they saw Israeli bulldozers razing their olive fields in the northern West Bank, medics said.
Mufeed Abdul-Halim Ash-Sheikh, 62, his wife Fahmiyya, 60, and his son Mahmoud, 26, were evacuated to the Darwish Nazzal Hospital after they collapsed at the scene in Azzun Itma, near Qalqilya.
Israeli forces began digging in farmland last week to make way for a new section of the wall.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=438943 14 jan 2012, 20:48 , Respect
Maria 29 nov 2011
Farmland seized in Beit Ummar, local official says
HEBRON (Ma’an) -- Israeli authorities handed over a decision Tuesday confiscating 12 dunums of land in Surif village northwest of Hebron and gave the owners orders to demolish a well and uproot trees.
Yousef Abu Maria, coordinator of the national committees in Beit Ummar, told Ma’an that the land is 5 kilometers from a wall Israel is maintaining to separate the village from a nearby settlement.
He added that the owners are registered as Jamal Muhammad Abdul Qadi and Ibrahim Abdul Hadi Hmeidat. The farmland has been planted with almond and olive crops for the past four years, he said.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=440588 14 jan 2012, 20:50 , Respect-
Maria 29 nov 2011
Settlers Destroy Olive Trees in Nablus
NABLUS, (WAFA) – A group of Jewish settlers Tuesday destroyed several olive trees in Nadama, a village south of Nablus, according to a local official.
Head of the Village Council, Ehab al-Qitt, told WAFA that a group of settlers from Yitzhar settlement south of Nablus raided the village, chopped off ten olive trees and destroyed them.
The settlers fled the scene once the village residents arrived, added al-Qitt.
http://english.wafa.ps/index.php?action=detail&id=18169
14 jan 2012, 20:50 , Respect -
Maria 4 dec 2011
Israel detains 7 female settlers for price tag attacks
JERUSALEM (AFP) -- Seven young Israeli women, six of them minors, have been arrested on suspicion of participating in the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian olive trees, Israeli police said on Sunday.
The women are also accused of taking part in demonstrations against the dismantling of illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank, during which Israeli army equipment was damaged, a police spokeswoman told AFP.
An Israeli court extended the detention of two of the teenagers later on Sunday, Israeli news site Ynet reported.
The girls are suspected of breaking into an Israeli army base, slashing tires and painting slogans against the evacuation of an Israeli army base, the report said.
The group are also accused of cutting down forests near Qusra village in the northern West Bank, Israeli newspaper The Jerusalem Post said.
The women have not yet been charged.
Qusra, near Nablus, is frequently raided by settlers from surrounding Jewish-only communities who torched a village mosque in September.
In October, the UN human rights office called on Israel to protect Palestinians and investigate a surge of attacks by Israeli settlers against civilians in the West Bank, particularly in the village of Qusra.
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said in October it had documented seven cases of Israeli settlers raiding the village in six weeks.
The Palestinian Authority has accused Israel of failing to act to stop a campaign of harassment by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs reports that over 2,500 olive trees were destroyed in September, and 7,500 this year.
According to research by Israeli NGO Yesh Din, in 97 incidents of tree destruction documented between 2005 and 2010, no court cases have yet been brought against culprits.
The seven women detained Sunday are being held under a new category of offenses labelled "nationalistic crimes," Ynet reported.
Better known as "price tag" attacks, right-wing activists use violent acts of retribution on Palestinians and their property to demonstrate their opposition to Israeli restrictions on settlements and their outposts in the occupied West Bank.
Around 300,000 Jewish settlers live in compounds across the West Bank, among some 2.6 million Palestinians. Settlements on occupied land are considered illegal under international law.
Ma'an staff contributed to this report.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=441960 14 jan 2012, 20:52 , Respect -
Maria 15 dec 2011
Netanyahu: Violent extremists are not terrorists
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday said he would not define violent Jewish extremists as terrorists after a string of attacks on mosques and Israeli army bases.
Israeli ministers formed a list of recommendations for the prime minister, including defining the ultra-nationalist attackers as terrorists.
While Netanyahu rejected the definition, he accepted other recommendations including issuing Jewish rioters with administrative detention orders, trying them in military courts and allowing soldiers to arrest them. The measures are commonly employed against Palestinians.
While soldiers arrest dozens of Palestinians every week -- often during night raids on their homes -- until now Israeli police had to be called to a crime scene to conduct arrests of Israelis, giving perpetrators time to flee.
Netanyahu compared settlers who went on a rampage Monday at an Israeli military base, threw rocks at a commander and his deputy, smashed windows and slashed vehicle tires, to Palestinian activists who hold weekly protests in Bilin against the confiscation of their land.
But, he added that the Jewish rioters were "a small group that does not represent the public that lives in Judea and Samaria," the name used by the Israeli government for the West Bank.
Security sources said the radical settlers, frequently known as the "Hilltop Youth" for their rogue outpost-building and pioneer rhetoric, number several hundred but enjoy wider, tacit support among the 500,000 Israelis living in the West Bank.
On Wednesday, radical Jews burnt the facade of a Jerusalem mosque not recently in use and scrawled "Death to the Arabs" on its walls, an assault blamed on a group that has vandalized other Muslim houses of worship over the past two years.
In an unusually swift response, Israeli police said they had arrested five Israeli men suspected of involvement in "nationalistically motivated crime."
Human rights groups have long accused Israel of failing to arrest or try most settlers accused of involvement in violence against Palestinians. Israel has arrested settler suspects in the past but rarely put any on trial.
High birthrates among religious Jews look likely to perpetuate Israel's rightist tack and its grip on the West Bank, where the Jewish-only settlements are illegal under international law and viewed by almost all world powers as an impediment to Palestinian statehood.
One settlement leader, Shaul Goldstein, said the radicals were marginal, contrasting their behavior with his community's record of volunteering for the military's top combat units.
Some zealots are exempted from conscription because they have police records or are designated as psychologically unfit. But three soldiers were arrested last week on suspicion of involvement in pro-settler vandalism and arson.
Attempts to demolish unauthorized outposts have been resisted by settlers who scuffle with troops or carry out night-time sabotage against military garrisons to inflict what they call the "price tag" for "selling out" the settlements.
Hoping to provoke Palestinian reprisals that would divert the soldiers, settlers frequently desecrate mosques and Muslim cemeteries and destroy Palestinian olive trees and cars.
"These things both endanger human life and distract from the (Israeli army's) main mission," Defense Minister Ehud Barak told Army Radio on Wednesday. "And they threaten the very sensitive fabric of our relations with our neighbors."
"In terms of their conduct, there is no doubt that this is the conduct of terrorists: terrorism, albeit Jewish."
Reuters contributed to this report.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=445115 14 jan 2012, 20:59 , Respect -
Maria 21 dec 2011
Report: 30 olive trees cut down near Hebron
TEL AVIV, Israel (Ma'an) -- Over two dozen olive trees were chopped down near the Palestinian city of Hebron in the occupied West Bank, Israeli news media reported Wednesday.
Israel's Ynet news site said two slogans were sprayed near the orchard.
The Israeli military says it has launched an investigation.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=446885