At dawn, on Sunday,Israeli settlers destroyed dozens of Palestinian-owned olive trees in Yasuf and al-Sawiya villages, in the occupied West Bank districts of Salfit and Nablus.
Anti-settlement activist Ghassan Daghlas said that Israeli settlers from the illegal settlement of Rahalim chopped off about 60 olive trees in al-Sawiya village.
Head of Yasuf’s village council, Khaled Ibayya, said that 58 olive trees were cut down in his village.
Ghassan Daghlas, a local anti-settlement activist, said that settlers from the illegal settlement of Rahalim broke into Palestinian-owned groves in the village, before they proceeded to chop off about 60 trees which belong to three Palestinian villagers from from as-Sawiya.
Days of Palestine further reports that ever since the start of this year’s olive harvest season, a main source of livelihood for thousands of Palestinian families in the countryside, Israeli settlers carried out hundreds of attacks targeting this vital sector.
The cruelest of these attacks occurred on the morning of October 16, when more than 30 settlers, masked and armed, attacked Palestinian farmers and foreign volunteers in Burin, north of the West Bank, injuring three of them, one seriously.
Since the start of the olive harvest season in October Israeli settlers have stepped up their attacks on Palestinian groves in the West Bank.
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