Middle East Monitor / March 16, 2022
Jewish settlers uprooted 200 olive saplings on Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, Wafa has reported. The owner of the land near Salfit where the incident took place, Azmi Hamdan, said that the Jewish settlers then stole most of the saplings.
The settlers have been harassing the Palestinian residents in the area of Khelet Hassan, in order to build a new illegal settlement as part of a ring of settler-colonies between Salfit and the city of Qalqilya.
Meanwhile, Palestinian activist Jihad al-Qaq told Anadolu that Israeli settlers stole four sheep from a shepherd in the town of Kafr Malik to the north of Ramallah.
Israeli NGO Peace Now puts the number of illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem at around 666,000. They live in 145 large settlements and 140 settlement outposts. All settlements are illegal under international law.
According to the UN, Israeli Jewish settlers carried out 496 attacks on Palestinians in 2021 alone.
