Early Tuesday, illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers uprooted approximately 30 olive trees in the village of Yasuf, east of Salfit, in the occupied West Bank’s central part.
Wael Abu Madi, head of the Yasuf Village Council, stated that the colonizers broke, cut, and uprooted at least 30 olive trees, aged between 20 and 25 years, owned by two siblings, Emad and Jihad Rabah Abdul-Razzaq, in the Tahet al-Karem area east of the village.
Abu Madi pointed out that the village is continuously subjected to attacks by the colonizers of the Tapuach illegal colony, which is established on stolen Palestinian lands.
He added that the colonizers frequently invade Palestinian lands, uproot trees, and repeatedly close the village’s main road.
The National Bureau for Defending Lands said in a report that the suffering of Palestinian farmers during this year’s olive harvest season is harsher than last year’s due to the dangerously escalating violations and crimes carried out by the occupation army and the paramilitary colonizers, which threaten higher loss rates of the crop, devastating hundreds of families that depend on their lands for income.
The report indicated that the violations carried out by the colonizers, under the protection of the occupation soldiers, and “with the participation of Ben Gvir’s gangs in attacking citizens during the olive harvest season, started early this year in various governorates of the occupied West Bank.”
These crimes include preventing farmers from reaching their lands, opening fire at them, looting the crop, burning olive trees, and the recent killing of a Palestinian woman, Hanan Abu Salama, 59, after Israeli soldiers shot her in the chest, last Thursday.
The increased Israeli violations and the severe restrictions preventing the Palestinians from entering their lands will likely prevent Palestinian farmers from entering 80,000 dunams of olive orchards this season, which could lead to a loss of about 15% of this year’s crop.
A report by the Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission revealed that the illegal Israeli colonizers uprooted 699 trees last month, including 694 olive trees in the governorates of Hebron, Salfit, Bethlehem, Nablus, Ramallah, and Tulkarem.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
