Tag: Olive Harvest 2008

Maan: Clashes over olive harvest begin in Ni’lin, continue near Hebron

To view original article, published by the Maan News Agency on the 3rd October, click here

Ni’lin – Ma’an – Settlers near Ramallah in the central West Bank and Hebron in the south clashed with Palestinians and peace activists as they sought to harvest olives from areas confiscated by Israel. Both incidents occurred on Friday, the last day of the Muslim Eid Al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of Ramadan.

In Ni’lin, a Palestinian town north of Ramallah, a group of international and Israeli activists clashed with Israeli settlers as they accompanied Palestinians from the village of Ni’lin to their lands on the far side of the separation wall in order to harvest the olives from village trees.

About 40 activists clashed with as many settlers. The latter claim that the olive grove that was to be harvested does not indeed belong to the Ni’lin family that went to harvest the fruits. The settlers tried to prevent the activists and the Palestinian family from reaching the trees.

Some of the setters later claimed that a peace activist attacked the wife of rightist settler Itamar Ben-Gvir, who brought her young son to the demonstration. Details of the attack are unclear, and no injuries were documented. The activist charged with the attack was reported to have told the Israeli press that the mother had insulted him prior to his act against her.

In Ni’lin Dr Mustafa Al-Barghouthi told Ma’an that Palestinians and activists were able to drive the settlers away from the olive grove and harvest the fruits belonging to the family.

In Hebron, settlers attacked peace activists from Rabbis for Human Rights as they stood protecting a group of Palestinians harvesting olives in a nearby field.

According to Israeli media sources Israeli police tried to halt the settlers who were attempting to drive the farmers off the land.

Rabbis for Human Rights said they would be going to 40 different Palestinian villages during this olive harvest season to ensure that Israeli settlers and police do not harm the Palestinian families who go into their fields and village lands to pick the olives from the trees.

For several years international and Israeli peace activists have travelled to Palestine to help local farmers harvest olives from groves and fields that have been confiscated, or effectively confiscated, by Israel. Some fields abut Israeli settlements and farmers cannot go near them without fear of being harassed or injured.

Also on Friday in Al-Ma’sara, an area southeast of Bethlehem, clashes erupted between the Israeli army and activists as the latter marched in the village in a regular protest against the wall. The march came on the eighth anniversary of the death of the young Palestinian Mohammad Ad-Durra on the same sight.

Maan: Israel – Settler attacks on Palestinians, Israeli soldiers increasing

To view original article, published by the Maan News Agency on the 3rd October, click here

Jewish settlers are committing hundreds of acts of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel’s chief military officer in the occupied West Bank said on Thursday.

Settlers are also escalating attacks on Israeli soldiers who occasionally intervene, the general said in an interview with Ha’aretz.

“In the past, only a few dozen individuals took part in such activity, but today that number has grown into the hundreds,” Major-General Gadi Shamni told Israeli reporters on Thursday.

“That’s a very significant change,” he added.

According to the Israeli army commander, settler attacks against Palestinians occur not as sporadic acts of violence, but as “conspiratorial actions” against citizens.

Shamni said that the “grave phenomenon” was gaining new levels of scrutiny by the Israeli populace, as many attacks are committed or planned by Jewish rabbis.

The United Nations (UN) had already reported 222 separate incidents of settler violence within the first six months of 2008, compared with a similar figure for the entire year of 2007, almost twice the average.

Palestinians insist that settlers have been harassing them for years. Among the commonly reported incidents are cases in which settlers burn olive trees or throw rocks at farmers.

On 13 September, dozens of settlers raided the West Bank village of Asira Al-Kibliya. Witnesses reported that many were armed with weapons, including guns, slingshots, knives and stun grenades.

Settlers engaged in “price-tag” campaign

There has been a noticeable surge in attacks by Israeli settlers throughout the West Bank over the past few months, with a large percentage of those attacks coming from the illegal settlements in the Nablus region. Residents of the Palestinian villages in this region have borne the brunt of the recent onslaught, with numerous assaults on people (including numerous murders); livestock; properties; and olive groves.

Burin, hedged on the south by Yitzhar settlement and on the north by Bracha, is under constant attack from settlers, who light fires; poison and shoot livestock; cut telephone and power lines; and attack houses. At least 50 percent of Burin’s olive trees have been destroyed by settler fires, which are happening with greater regularity. Ali Eid, mayor of Burin, echoes the confusion voiced by many Palestinians living in these villages. “Why they do this, we don’t know. This year women, girls, guys, they all make fire. Why? We don’t know.”

The answer, however, has become apparent. Israeli settler “activists” have recently confirmed that these attacks are not just random, but are indeed coordinated, as Palestinian villagers suspect. The attacks form the basis of the campaign known variously as “price-tag” or “mutual concern” – a coordinated effort to prevent any dismantling of illegal settlements and outposts by creating “days of chaos” so that Israeli police forces “can’t come, do the evacuation and then go,” says Itai Zer, a founder of the 20-family Havat Gilad outpost that was responsible for the fires in Sarra and Tell on 18th September – a response to the removal of the outpost Yad Yair, west of Ramallah.

Recommended methods reportedly include arson and road-blocking to force troops to abandon the evacuation and deal with the protesters’ actions, as well as demonstratively entering Palestinian villages – a tactic used repeatedly in the village of Asira al Qibliya. Activist Daniella Weiss and regional settler leader Yitzhak Shadmi in a media interview both drew the line at attacking Palestinians or their property, but said they wouldn’t dissuade others who advocate more extreme action.

These attacks are not just limited to the area where an evacuation is happening, but, like the response to the Yad Yair outpost, are encouraged to occur throughout the West Bank, so that any attempted evacuation, no matter how small, is responded to with widespread attacks on Palestinian villages.

Under international law, all Israeli settlements are illegal, but during Annapolis negotiations, Israel promised to remove just the outposts constructed since March 2001 and halt all settlement expansion. In reality, settlement expansion has continued apace, even in periods when the Israeli government publicly declared a complete halt to all settlement construction. While most settlements and outposts enjoy full support of the Israeli military, a handful of caravans and demountable buildings have been demolished in the past 10 months. This small number of demolitions, however, has sparked the campaign of reprisals primarily taking the form of attacks on Palestinians.

The campaign began in June 2008, and while attacks on Palestinians are widely under-reported, the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) indicate that reported incidents increased by 46 percent from June to July 2008, with the Israeli police recording an 11 percent spike in rioting over the past months..