Israeli terrorism. Settlers destroy 120 olive trees in Palestinian territory

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Israeli bulldozers uprooted about 120 fruitful olive trees, on Sunday, in the al-Lubban al-Gharbi village, west of the central occupied West Bank district of Ramallah.

Fawwaz Salem, the former head of the village’s council, said that the uprooting of 120 trees came a month after Israeli forces delivered a military order to a local resident, Shafiq Abu Salem, informing him of confiscation of his private land near the al-Lubban al-Gharbi village, in order to pave a settler-only road in the area for the nearby illegal Israeli settlement of Beit Aryeh.

The 120 olive trees were planted across a plot of land of three dunams (0.74 acres).

According to Palestinians and rights groups, Israel’s main goal, both in its policies in Area C, in which more than 60% of Palestinian land is under full Israeli control, and Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, is to depopulate the land of its Palestinian residents and to replace them with Jewish Israeli communities, in order to manipulate population demographics in all of historic Palestine.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law, with recent announcements of settlement expansion provoking condemnation from the international community.

“In just over two months, from the beginning of May to 7 July 2018, B’Tselem documented 10 instances in which settlers destroyed a total of more than 2,000 trees and grapevines and burned down a barley field and bales of hay,” B’Tselem said in its report.

The report added “Settler violence and vandalism takes place with full backing by the Israeli authorities. Sometimes soldiers take part in the assault; at other times, they stand idly by. The police makes no substantial effort to investigate the incidents, nor takes measures to prevent them or stop them in real time.”