On Thursday morning, illegal paramilitary colonizers attacked Palestinian farmers while they were harvesting olives in the village of Shufa, southeast of Tulkarem, in the occupied West Bank’s northwestern part.
Farmer Tahseen Hamed told the Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA) that a group of colonizers from the “Avnei Hefetz” illegal colony, built on village lands, and the pastoral colonialist outpost to the west, attacked the farmers and threatened to shoot them.
He added that the colonizers, who were accompanied by Israeli soldiers, fired live rounds to intimidate the farmers, chasing them from area to area and claiming that the land belongs to them and not to the indigenous Palestinians.
Hamed stated that the colonizers also threatened to shoot the farmers if they returned to their lands and orchards, noting that these lands are planted with ancient olive trees.
Shufa are subjected to almost daily violations by colonizers who attack them during the olive harvest, vandalize their agricultural tools and seize them, in addition to cutting and uprooting trees, in an attempt to displace them from their lands.
Also Thursday morning, paramilitary Israeli colonizers attacked Palestinians olive harvesters in the village of Jalud, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank’s northern part.
It is worth mentioning that the Israeli colonizers constantly escalate their violations and assaults, including the uprooting and cutting of trees, every year during the Olive harvest season in the occupied West Bank, including in and around the occupied capital, Jerusalem.
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”.
