PALESTINIAN ACTIVISTS PLANT OLIVE TREES IN HEBRON

Hebron, 13 Jumadil Awwal 1436/4 March 2015 (MINA) – Dozens of Palestinians took part in planting olive tree saplings in the Tel Rumeida neighborhood of Hebron on Tuesday, local activists said.

Badie Dweik said that the activity was a “message of Palestinian persistence and that we will keep resisting for our freedom and independence and we are here despite the area having been declared as a closed military zone by the Israeli army,” Ma’an News Agency quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Muhannad al-Jabari, a student from Al-Quds University, said dozens of Israeli soldiers tried to prevent the activists from reaching the area.

Settlers in Hebron had cut down saplings previously planted in the area by local Palestinians.

The olive industry supports the livelihoods of roughly 80,000 families in the occupied West Bank.

Since 1967, approximately 800,000 olive trees have been uprooted in the occupied West Bank, according to a joint report by the Palestinian Authority and the Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem.(T/P008/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)