Middle East Monitor / October 19, 2020
Jewsih settlers today flooded Palestinian-owned land with sewage and wastewater in the village of Deir Al-Hatab in Nablus governorate. The flooding has disrupted the local olive harvest.
According to Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official in charge of the settlements’ portfolio in the northern West Bank, settlers from the illegal Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh were responsible for flooding the land and damaging the trees.
He explained that most of this land is planted with olive trees, which means that this year’s crop of olives is threatened.
The olive harvest is the main source of income for thousands of Palestinian families in the occupied territories, but they face many obstacles due to the Israeli occupation. These include Israeli-imposed restrictions on access to the farmers’ own land as well as attacks by the settlers.
Since the olive harvest began in late September, Israel soldiers and settlers have attacked farmers in various places across the occupied West Bank.
Hundreds of thousands of settlers live in 250 settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, and make life very difficult for the Palestinians living under Israel’s brutal military occupation. Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in June 1967.
