17 Israeli attacks target olive farmers in 6 West Bank governorates

The Commission explained that the attacks were distributed across the governorates of Hebron (south), Ramallah and Al-Bireh (center), and Nablus, Qalqilya, Jenin, and Salfit (north).

It stated that the attacks included directly targeting farmers, preventing them from accessing their lands, stealing crops and agricultural equipment, and damaging and burning trees.

The Commission explained that these attacks reveal a dangerous escalation in the patterns of targeting the olive harvest season in the West Bank.

It added that their danger is not limited to the direct losses incurred by farmers and their crops, but extends to an attempt to impose a new reality on their relationship with their lands through violence and intimidation.

The Commission called on the international community and human rights organizations to take practical measures to protect Palestinian farmers and hold those responsible for the attacks accountable, rather than merely condemning them.

According to Anadolu Agency's correspondent, various areas of the West Bank during the olive harvest season, which began early this October, witnessed repeated attacks by settlers, including the theft of crops, the expulsion of farmers from their lands, assaulting them, and preventing them from reaching their fields or continuing work in them.

Earlier on Thursday, the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission documented 409 attacks targeting olive farmers, their trees, lands, and agricultural equipment in the West Bank during the period from October 1 to 21.

The Commission said in a statement that 317 of those attacks were carried out by settlers, compared to 92 carried out by the Israeli army.

The attacks included preventing farmers from reaching their fields and forcing them to leave, in addition to stealing crops and damaging trees and agricultural equipment.

Since the start of the Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, the Israeli army and settlers have escalated their attacks against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

These attacks include the killing and arrest of Palestinians, the demolition of homes and facilities, the burning of mosques and vehicles, the bulldozing of agricultural lands, preventing farmers from reaching their fields, and the displacement of Palestinian communities, alongside settlement expansion.

Palestinians warn that these practices pave the way for Israel to officially annex the West Bank, undermining the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state in accordance with relevant United Nations resolutions.

In 1948, Israel was established on Palestinian lands occupied by armed Zionist gangs that committed massacres and caused the displacement of at least 750,000 Palestinians, before Israel occupied the rest of the Palestinian territories in 1967 and refused to withdraw from them.