Israeli occupation bar farmers from harvesting their olives

Israeli occupation bar farmers from harvesting their olives

 Israeli occupation authority barred Palestinian farmers from reaching their fields while extremist Jewish settlers opened fire at farmers and set fire to olives groves.

Farmers from the village of Masha to the west of the northern West Bank city of Salfit were barred from reaching their fields which lie behind the apartheid wall to harvest their olive crop.

The Israeli occupation closed the Han gate which lies to the west of the village and want to force the farmers to use another gate to the north of the village, but the farmers refuse to use the other gate because it is so far from their fields and some of the fields cannot be reached from that gate.

The farmers said that they have staged a sit in opposite the gate for the past five days from the early morning hours till noon and called on human rights organizations to help them reach their fields and harvest their olive crop.

Meanwhile, extremist Jewish settlers opened fire at farmers from the village of Azmout to the north of the northern West Bank city of Nablus while the farmers were harvesting their olive crop.

Eyewitnesses said that a number of armed settlers from Alon Moreh settlement which is built on land belonging to Azmout villagers attacked Palestinian olive harvesters, insulted them, chased them away from their fields and fired live rounds towards them.

Furthermore, Jewish settlers set fire to hundreds of dunums of land planted with olive trees in the villages of Tal, Sarra, Jit in the Nablus district.

Settlers from the settlement outpost of Havat Gilad in the northern West Bank district of Qalqilya, at noon Friday, set fire to olive groves belonging to residents of Fara’ta village. The settlers further stopped fire engines from reaching the fields to put the fire out.

Locals said that the settlers chose the time of Friday prayers to do that because they know the villagers are at the mosque at that time.