Israeli settlers wound 3 Palestinians, torch an olive grove west of Salfit

Three Palestinians were injured  today when Israeli settlers assaulted olive harvesters in the groves of Huwara town, south of Nablus, according to a local source.

 

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activities in the northern West Bank, told WAFA that a number of settlers attacked Palestinian farmers as they were picking their olive trees, inflicting injuries and bruises on three of them.

 

He added that this was the third settler attack against Palestinian olive harvesters in the last 24 hours in Nablus.

 

The settlers came from Yitzhar, a colonial settlement notorious for its hardcore religious community.

 

With more than 12 million olive trees planted across 45% of the West Bank’s agricultural land, the olive harvest constitutes one of the biggest sources of economic sustainability for thousands of Palestinian families.

 

In the same context, it was reported that Israeli settlers torched an olive grove belonging to Deir Ballut town, west of Salfit..

 

The town mayor Yahya Mustafa told WAFA that a group of settlers set fire to 50 olive trees, located to the east of the town, and identified the landlords as Yousef, Mustafa and Sbeih Abdul-Ilah.

 

Located 15 kilometers to the west of Salfit city, Deir Ballut has a population of some 4,100 and occupies a total area of 11,900 dunams. It boasts several archeological sites dating back to the Byzantine era, such as St. Simeon Monastery and al-Qal‘a Monastery.

 

Before 1948, the village owned 40,000 dunums of land (10,000 acres). In 1967, 20% of the land of DeirBallut (or 2,000 acres) was confiscated into Israel. Since then, like so many other villages in Palestine, Deir Ballut has been subjected to almost continual land theft from Israeli settlements, bypass roads, and military installations.

 

Compiled by: Basma Qaddour