With the start of the olive harvest season for this year, the settler attacks have escalated throughout different areas of the West Bank. The attacks ranged from stealing the olive harvest, uprooting trees and attacking citizens and their properties. The violations and attacks carried out by the settlers usually occur all year round. However, during this year’s olive harvest season, these systemic attacks have been increasing significantly on a daily basis with the goal of destroying the olive trees which are considered the key livelihood for the Palestinian farmers.
On the morning of Monday 7/10/2013, the settlers of “Niriya” settlement destroyed a number of olive trees in the village of Ras Karkar, West of Ramallah. The olive trees belong to Maher Samhan, who emphasized that this is not the first settler attack which has taken place on the land of the village and its residents. The settlers of the “Shave Shomron” settlement have destroyed 100 olive trees on Saturday, 5/10/2013 in the village of Deir Sharaf, West of Nablus governorate. The same day clashes erupted in the villages of Bourin and Ainabous in the south of Nablus city between the Palestinian citizens and the settlers.
And on 4/10/2013 soldiers in the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) assaulted a family that was working on gathering the olive harvest in the village of Jamaeen in the Nablus governorate. The IOF pursued the family members and threatened them with further assault if they returned to work the land. And in Hebron the settlers of “Susa” and “Maoun” settlements uprooted 40 olive seedlings on Thursday, 3/10/2013 in Yatta, located south of Hebron. These seedlings belonged to Jaber Shatat. Also on that day, a group of settlers assaulted the Palestinian citizen Sami Yousef Radad when he and his wife were on their land near the settlement of “Kanah” in AlZawiyeh village in the governorate of Salfit. The settlers stole the olive harvest he had collected, attacked him and demanded that he not to return to his land.