ISRAELI SETTLERS UPROOT 550 OLIVE TREE SAPLINGS, ASSAULT ELDERLY MAN IN HEBRON

Hebron, 3 Jumadil Awwal 1436/22 February 2015 (MINA) – A group of extremist settlers from the Asfar (Metzad) settlement, to the east of Al Shuyoukh, on Tuesday night, uprooted 550 olive tree saplings and fled the scene.

A group of extremist settlers from the Asfar (Metzad) settlement, to the east of Al Shuyoukh, on Tuesday night, uprooted 550 olive tree saplings and fled the scene.

According to the Palestinian News Network, activist Ahmed Halayka reported that the land belongs to Abdel Kader and Moussa Abu Shanab Al-Ayayda, and that it is located in the area of Zaafaran, where the Asfar settlement was established.

Al-Halayka said the landowners were shocked, Wednesday morning, to see trees that had been planted only a week earlier uprooted, IMEMC quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

The incident is not the first of its kind, as Israeli settlers every week attack Palestinian lands in occupied West Bank, where they uproot and destroy almond and olive trees under the protection of the Israeli police.

On Thursday, settlers of ‘Susia’ and ‘Afi Jal’ settlements built on Yatta lands south of Hebron assaulted and beat Palestinian citizen Jibreel Mohammad Na’man, age 55, from Yatta.

Rateb Jbour, Coordinator of the Popular Committee against Settlements and the Apartheid Wall in Yatta, reported that the settlers attacked Na’man and severely beat him, causing wounds and bruises. Na’man was transferred to hospital to receive treatment for his injuries.

Al-Jbour called on international organizations to intervene and provide protection for Palestinian citizens from the settlers’ barbaric attacks, especially in the east of Yatta, noting that these violent attacks aim to force the Palestinian citizens to leave their lands and serving to benefit Israeli settlement expansion plans.­­­ (T/P002/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)