On Saturday, illegal Israeli colonizers cut and uprooted 258 olive saplings in the town of Kafr Ed-Deek, west of Salfit in the central West Bank.
The orchard’s owner, Taysir Ali Ahmad, said the paramilitary colonizers cut and uprooted olive seedlings in his, in the western part of the town.
Ahmad added that he has been rehabilitating his land, which covers an area of 17 dunums, for four years, and planted it with saplings, ranging in age from 5 to 10 years.
The colonizers uprooted the trees, destroyed irrigation pipes and water networks, and cut seven trees on an adjacent orchard that Ahmad’s brother, Hasan, owned.
Salfit Governor Abdullah Kamil said that the process of uprooting trees by colonizers is part of the framework of Israeli plans to seize Palestinian lands and build more colonies.
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 Humanitarian Law.
According to Article 8(2) of the Rome Statute, ‘the transfer, directly or indirectly, by an occupying power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory’ are unlawful.
