FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
This Friday the villagers of Umm Salamuna and neighbouring villages in the South Bethlehem region will protest against the bulldozers which are currently razing their land for the Apartheid Wall. The villagers will hold midday prayers on their land before marching to confront the bulldozers.
Last Friday villagers held a rally and blocked a settler road in protest at the Wall which will annex 700 dunums to the Israeli settlement of Efrat and destroy 270 dunums. Although the villagers are challenging the route of the Wall in the Israeli Supreme Court, a Court order freezing work was lifted two weeks ago and the bulldozers have been razing the village’s agricultural land daily ever since.
In Hebron’s Tel Rumeida district olive trees will be planted to replace trees belonging to local Palestinian families that have been burned or destroyed in recent years by Hebron settlers. Two hundred will be planted in Tel Rumeida this Friday including one for CPT member (Christian Peacemaker Teams) Tom Fox who was kidnapped and murdered in Iraq on March 9th 2006. Tom volunteered with CPT in Hebron in 2005. The meeting place will be Shuhada Street at 9am and the planting will continue until around 1pm.
Between 2003 and 2006, 2,400 olive trees owned by Palestinians have been reported to have been uprooted or cut down by settlers, according to Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz.