- Jewish settlers have gone on a rampage in occupied West
Bank towns and villages, hacking down hundreds of olive orchards just as
they were about to be harvested.
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- Settlers uprooted, chopped and burned trees overnight
in the villages of Sawia, Beta, Yitma, Bait Furik, Hawwara and Tal, said
Palestinian witnesses on Wednesday.
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- One witness said Israeli soldiers in Tal, about six kilometres
southwest of Nablus, fired into orchards, sparking a fire and leaving 200
trees charred.
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- Olive crops amount to up to 50% of the livelihood of
Palestinians in some of these towns.
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- Historic Ties
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- Farmer Imad al-Jallad from Hawwara, whose family lost
150 to 200 trees in the last week, could not find the words to describe
losing orchards his father planted 40 years ago.
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- "We've been (farming) for hundreds of years,"
he said.
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- His brother, Fawzan, was expecting nearly 25 barrels
of olive oil from this year's crop. Each barrel sells for $60 to $70 -money
he needs to feed his family.
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- The settlers' latest activities mean that income has
disappeared.
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- Hasan al-Afi owns 300 olive trees in Hawwara, but had
been unable to harvest this year's crop because Israeli soldiers and settlers
were barricading his land. He tried to access his farm earlier this week
accompanied by foreign peace activists, but was turned back.
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- "We are shot at if we go up there without the peace
activists," added the farmer, 47, bitterly.
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- An Israeli army spokesman said forces have no right to
arrest settlers, even if they were attacking Palestinians and vandalising
their property.
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- This harvest, some West Bank farmers appealed to peace
activists from the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Israeli
peace groups such as Gush Shalom and Peace Now to accompany them to their
orchards for protection, particularly those located next to Jewish settlements.
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- Hasan is currently working odd jobs to put food on the
table for his 12 children.
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- He discovered that his trees had been picked clean by
the settlers, but not yet chopped down.
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- Israelis Authorised
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- An Israeli army spokesman confirmed that these incidents
took place.
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- "The army has no right to arrest Israeli citizens,
including the settlers," he told Aljazeera's correspondent in the
West Bank, Khaled Amayreh, in response to a question why the army did not
intervene.
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- When asked if this also applied if there were attacks
on Palestinian civilians and vandalising their property he said: "Yes."
- Earlier this week, Jewish settlers from the Yitzhar settlement
north of Nablus hacked down about 500 olive trees in Aynabus, some of which
were hundreds of years old.
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- The Jerusalem Post quoted one of the settler leaders
in the area as saying that the destruction of the Palestinian groves was
aimed at preventing villagers from approaching the settlement.
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- Under international law, all Jewish settlements are illegal.
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- Opposition Labour party MP Ephraim Sneh was quoted on
public radio as saying that he had raised the issue at a meeting of the
parliament's defence and foreign affairs committee after witnessing the
damage himself.
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- Uri Ariel, an MP for the right-wing National Unity Party
who is close to settlers' organisations, claimed it was not known who was
behind the destruction.
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- In 2002, Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu, Israel's former chief
rabbi, issued a religious edict allowing Jewish settlers to steal Palestinian
olive crops in their respective areas.
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- http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/32835393-14A4-40A4-9BF8-5D7E12AA66B4.htm
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