Adnan Salah, a retired school administrator-turned-farmer, got an unexpected call from his neighbours on Thursday morning. They told him to come immediately to his farmland on the outskirts of the Bethlehem-area village of al-Khader in the occupied West Bank. “When my nephews and I arrived, we were shocked to see what was in front of us,” Salah, 70, told Middle East Eye. Fifty of his olive trees, which he had spent the past 17 years cultivating, had been chopped down, their remains strewn on the ground in front of him. Salah, his brother and nephews own 40 dunams of land (two hectares) planted with grapevines, as well as olive, fig and almond trees.
Al-Khader is located south of Bethlehem and is surrounded by a number of illegal settlements from the Gush Etzion bloc. Villagers like Salah, whose land is on the outskirts of the village and near the settlements, are more susceptible to attacks. Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, which documents settler attacks on Palestinians and their farmland across the occupied West Bank, notes that such attacks are a daily reality, and “are part of a calculated strategy for dispossessing Palestinians of their land”.
According to a 2020 data report from Yesh Din, from 2005 to 2019, out of 1,200 cases of ideologically motivated crimes committed by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank, 91 percent were closed with no indictments. Additionally, Israeli police “failed in the investigation” of 82 percent of the files opened since 2005 and subsequently closed with known outcomes 1,020 cases out of 1,247.
— source middleeasteye.net | 27 Feb 2020