A report prepared by the National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements stated that the suffering of farmers during this year’s olive harvest season is more severe than last year’s, due to the terrorism of the occupation and its settlers, which threatens to cause higher crop losses.
The office added in its weekly settlement report issued today, Saturday, that the terror of the settlers, under the protection of the occupation army, and the participation of Ben Gvir's gangs in attacking citizens during the olive harvest season, began early this year in various governorates of the West Bank, starting with preventing farmers from reaching their fields, through stealing the crop, burning olive trees, and ending with shooting at them, which led to the martyrdom of citizen Hanan Abu Salama (59 years old) by the occupation's bullets last Thursday.
It is expected that farmers will not be able to access 80,000 dunums of land planted with olives, which will lead to the loss of about 15% of this year’s crop.
According to the report: Wherever you go in the vicinity of the villages adjacent to the apartheid wall, and those close to the settlements and colonial outposts, you will find Ben Gvir’s emergency teams and the “Hill Youth” and “Price Tag” terrorist thugs confronting you.
He added: With the escalation of settler violence in the West Bank, the central unit of the Israeli police, under the leadership of "Avshai Moalem", who is close to Ben Gvir, stopped coordinating with the "Shabak", to limit, even on the narrowest scale, the settler attacks.
According to the newspaper "Haaretz", in its issue published last Sunday: "Officials in the "Shabak" confirmed in closed talks that the police unit is not doing its duty in dealing with the manifestations of violence and terrorism committed by settlers and elements of the extreme right against Palestinians in the West Bank.
According to its report, the unit commander, "Afshay Moalem," originally denies the increase in the level of Jewish terrorism in the West Bank, and refrains from coordinating with the relevant agencies.
On the level of colonial activities, the occupation authorities published last week a tender to build 286 colonial units in an open area to the north of the “Ramat Shlomo” settlement in East Jerusalem, which was seized through the application of the “Absentee Property” Law, according to a statement issued by the Israeli “Ir Amim” Association.
It is part of a plan to build a total of 650 units on an area of 71 dunams - which would expand this colony towards the Beit Hanina neighborhood.
The tender is scheduled to open for bidding on November 20, 2024, but the occupation authorities may decide to postpone the procedure. This plan would expand the aforementioned colony northward, to the edge of the built-up area of the Beit Hanina neighborhood, and achieve two goals of Israeli policy in East Jerusalem: first, to complicate the possibility of drawing the future borders of the Palestinian capital in Jerusalem, and second, to prevent the ability of Palestinian neighborhoods to expand and develop, in order to meet the needs of their residents.
The report indicated that the occupation authorities and settlement organizations are expanding the establishment of more colonial outposts in wartime conditions, as 43 illegal colonial outposts have been established since the beginning of the war.
For comparison, the settlers used to establish an average of about six outposts per year, while in the war year they established one outpost almost every week. These outposts are, according to estimates by Israeli organizations opposed to the settlements, linked by an umbilical cord to the violence of the settlers and the expulsion of Palestinian shepherds and farmers from their lands, a phenomenon that the head of the Shin Bet considers "Jewish terrorism."
Throughout the years of occupation, the olive tree has been a symbol of existence and steadfastness. In order to protect the land from the monster of colonialism, and from the occupation policy in general, the Palestinians began to expand the cultivation of the olive tree, especially in recent years after the Al-Aqsa Intifada (the Second Intifada). The area of land planted with olives in 2010 was about 462,824 dunams, of which about 21,509 were in the Gaza Strip, and in 2021 it became about 575,194 dunams, of which 33,633 dunams were in the Gaza Strip.
The annual production rate of olive oil, distributed among the governorates in the West Bank, is estimated at about 5,500 tons for Jenin Governorate, followed by Tulkarm at 3,500 tons, then Nablus, Ramallah, Salfit and the Gaza Strip at 3,000 tons each, Qalqilya at 1,500 tons, Hebron at 1,000 tons, Bethlehem at 600 tons, and finally Jerusalem at about 200 tons, while the production of olive oil in Jericho Governorate is almost limited.
After October 7, 2023, the olive tree became an integral part of the brutal war waged by the occupying state on the Gaza Strip, as well as in the West Bank, including Jerusalem.
In the Gaza Strip, the war had devastating effects on the olive sector, destroying more than 75% of the olive trees.
In the West Bank, last year’s season was extremely harsh for farmers, after the occupation authorities imposed a military tightening on the West Bank, and closed off large areas in the countryside to citizens with military checkpoints and earth mounds. The checkpoints and military gates between cities in the various governorates returned in a worse and harsher manner than they were in the Second Intifada (Al-Aqsa Intifada), and the earth mounds hindered the farmers’ ability to reach their fields.
In previous years, the occupation authorities required citizens to obtain permits to allow them to access their lands in certain areas, such as those located behind the wall (69 gates), or lands adjacent to settlements (more than 110 towns, villages, and communities, whose lands are located adjacent to 56 settlements and dozens of colonial outposts).
During the 2023 olive harvest season, the occupation authorities cancelled almost all of these approvals, effectively preventing farmers from accessing their lands. The agricultural gates along the apartheid wall remained closed, while the lands adjacent to the settlements were mostly closed by the occupation with earth mounds.
Consistent estimates from more than one source indicate that more than 96,000 dunums of olive-planted land throughout the West Bank were included in the occupation’s instructions as closed military zones, which resulted in the loss of a large olive crop.
The colonists practiced various forms of violence against the citizens, to prevent them from picking their olives.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented 113 cases of attacks by settlers during the period between September and November of last year, ranging from attacks on Palestinians, damage to their trees, or the theft of their crops and harvesting tools.
Of these incidents, 10 resulted in injuries and property damage, 10 resulted in injuries but no property damage, 93 resulted in damage but no injuries, and more than 2,000 trees were vandalized during these incidents.
The highest number of incidents was in the governorates of Nablus (40) and Ramallah (31), and OCHA estimated that more than 10,000 olive trees were vandalized by settlers throughout the West Bank throughout the year 2023.
In nearly half of the incidents (46%), the occupation army is present at the scene of the incidents, and sometimes they join the settlers and violently assault Palestinians.
The following is a summary of the weekly violations:
Jerusalem: The occupation authorities bulldozed land, demolished water lines, a fence, tarpaulins, and a number of plants owned by citizen Marwan Darbas in the town of Issawiya, and demolished a facility for selling and filling medical oxygen, owned by the Badriya family in the industrial zone in Wadi al-Joz.
The demolition comes as part of the Silicon Valley project, which threatens to demolish industrial and commercial facilities, with the aim of building a technology zone (high-tech companies), hotels, and commercial spaces.
Hebron: The occupation forces bulldozed more than ten dunams of citizens’ lands planted with vegetables and fruit trees in the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, in the “Al-Qarn” area, southeast of the town, causing heavy losses.
In the town of Dura in the south, the occupation prevented farmers from reaching their lands and picking olives in the areas of "Khalat Taha" and "Al-Abed".
Bethlehem: Settlers attacked the home of citizen Nader Abu Kamel in the village of Khalayel Al-Loz, southeast of the governorate, smashed its doors and windows, raised the flags of the occupying state around it, and cut down 20 olive trees.
Others bulldozed agricultural lands in the town of Battir, with the aim of expanding the borders of a colonial outpost in the area. Settlers and occupation soldiers also attacked shepherds while they were grazing their sheep in lands near the “Tekoa” settlement, and fired sound bombs and toxic gas at them, and assaulted them.
Ramallah: Armed settlers attacked olive pickers in the villages of Al-Mughayyir and Turmus Ayya in the north.
In the village of Al-Mughayyir, settlers attacked olive pickers in the plain area (Marj Al-Dhahab), Al-Hajar area, and Al-Rafid area, in an attempt to prevent them from picking olives.
In Turmus Ayya, dozens of settlers attacked olive pickers and forced them to leave their lands in the Dalja area east of the village. A young man was also shot in the foot with live ammunition during their attack on the village of Burqa east of Ramallah.
Nablus: Settlers attacked olive pickers in the Shaab al-Kharab area in Qusra, and demanded that they evacuate the area, under threat of arms and tear gas.
The occupation forces attacked olive pickers in the town of Asira al-Shamaliya, and seized the olive crop in the "Barnat" area on the eastern side of the town.
Settlers attacked olive pickers in the village of Jalud, forcing them to leave their lands.
In the village of Duma, settlers attacked citizens while they were picking olives in the western part of the village, and assaulted them. The occupation forces also expelled the olive pickers from their lands, attacked them with gas bombs, and forced them to leave their fields.
In the town of Beit Furik, the occupation forces forced Palestinian farmers to leave their lands while they were picking olives in the fields located on the western side of the town, threatening to arrest them if they returned to continue their work. The same thing happened on the western side of the village of Yanun, where a group of olive pickers were detained in Burin, south of Nablus, while they were working on one of the lands classified as (B).
Settlers also attacked citizens while they were picking olives in the village of Rojib, where they attacked farmers, sprayed them with pepper gas, and forced them to leave the olive fields.
Salfit: Settlers attacked citizens' vehicles between the towns of Rafat and Deir Ballut to the west with stones, under the protection of occupation soldiers. Others broke olive trees in the Wadi area, north of the village of Yasuf.
In the village of Kafr ad-Dik, the occupation forces demolished the house of citizen Samih al-Natour, which was under construction, under the pretext of building in the so-called “C” areas.
In Deir Ballut, the occupation army uprooted olive saplings, demolished a fence, and forced olive pickers to evacuate their lands. Farmers from the town of Haris near the “Rafafa” settlement were also raided, and forced to leave their lands while picking olive trees. During this raid, farmer Saif Suhail Khader Hussein was injured in the head with a stone after settlers from the “Tafuh” settlement, built on citizens’ lands in the Al-Mushrifah area west of the village, attacked him while he was picking olives in the village of Yasuf.
Jenin: Citizen Hanan Abdul Rahman Abu Salama (59 years old) was martyred after being shot by the occupation forces in the village of Faqqu’a, while she was picking olives with her family in the area near the racist separation and expansion wall built on the village’s lands.
Settlers from the "Homesh" settlement cut down dozens of olive trees in the town of Jaba, while the occupation forces demolished three greenhouses in the village of Al-Jalameh, northeast of Jenin, in the village's plain area, on an area of three dunams, owned by the brothers Amjad and Hisham Nader Abu Farha.
Tulkarm: The occupation forces prevented farmers in the town of Ramin from picking olives, and forced them to leave their lands, under threat of arms, and threatened them not to return to their lands, except after obtaining coordination and permits, under the pretext that the area is military. They also seized an agricultural tractor in the Ramin plain, owned by citizen Fayez Ahmed Fawzi Salman.
In the village of Beit Lid, settlers stole olives, while others attacked farmers while they were picking olives in the Ramin plain, and forced them to leave their lands, at gunpoint.
Meanwhile, an armed settler brought his sheep to the plain lands, in a provocative move against the farmers, and settlers opened fire on participants in an event organized by the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission to help farmers from the village of Kafr al-Labad pick olives from their lands.
Jordan Valley: The occupation authorities have begun paving a colonial road in the northern Jordan Valley to the southeast of the village of Kardala, where the road is expected to reach the outskirts of Khirbet Ibziq. It covers large areas of land, as part of this land is owned by citizens, and the other part is mountainous pastoral land. The settlers had begun rehabilitating the road leading to the new colonial outpost, with the aim of displacing the residents of the community.
Settlers also stormed the Arab al-Malihat community northwest of Jericho, searched a number of homes, and placed signs on some of them, warning of imminent danger.
