340 Attacks on Olive Pickers: Harvest Season Under Occupation's Fire

SadaNews - The head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Muayad Shaaban, stated that the Israeli occupation army and settlers have carried out a total of 340 attacks against olive pickers since the season began in the first week of October until now.

He added in a statement issued by the commission today, Thursday, that the commission's teams monitored the occupation army carrying out 620 cases of aggression, and 278 cases of aggression by settlers, noting that these attacks ranged from violent physical assaults, arrest campaigns, movement restrictions, preventing access, and intimidation in all its forms to direct gunfire, as occurred in Tubas Governorate.

Shaaban pointed out that the assaults concentrated in Ramallah Governorate with 107 cases and Nablus Governorate with 94 cases of assault, followed by Hebron Governorate with 38 cases.

He indicated that the current season recorded 92 cases of movement restrictions and terrorization of olive pickers, in addition to 59 cases of beatings and assaults against farmers.

Shaaban explained that this season, which coincided with the ongoing aggression against our people, is the hardest and most dangerous in recent decades, due to the exploitation of the army and settlers of wartime systems to commit crimes supported by many policies and legislations that enhance cases of aggression, terrorism, and restrictions, especially the closure of governorates and the handing over of weapons to settler militias, and more dangerously, exempting them from accountability and prosecution. He added that this season witnessed an escalation in the imposition of closed military areas on agricultural lands.

He added that 125 violent incidents have affected olive-planted lands in the current season, including 170 cases of cutting, breaking, and uprooting olive-planted lands that led to the destruction of a total of 1200 olive trees.

Shaaban noted that the numerical data indicates an escalating pattern of recorded assaults by the documentation teams in the commission over the past seasons, demonstrating a policy that has become significantly tangible in the terrorist targeting of the Palestinian olive season, as assaults increased from the 2022 season with 136 attacks to 333 attacks in the 2023 season reaching 407 attacks for the year 2024, to 340 attacks so far in the current season, which unequivocally illustrates the scale of targeting faced by Palestinian farmers.

He called on the world's countries to move from mere slogans to real action, actions that would protect the Palestinian people and their national resources against the crime of the age represented by state terrorism and the official sponsorship of settlers.