Jewish settlers torch Palestinian cultivated fields

Jewish settlers torch Palestinian cultivated fields

NABLUS, Jewish settlers on Thursday afternoon set fire to large areas of Palestinian owned land in the village of Hawwara to the south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus, according to local sources.

The sources said that a number of extremist settlers from the near-by Yitzhar settlement set fire to cultivated fields at the Tira neighbourhood of Hawwara and the fire quickly spread to neighbouring fields burning dozens of dunums of  agricultural land.

This attack comes at the time of the year when Jewish settlers’ attacks against Palestinian farmers peak as Palestinians harvest their olive crop.

In a related incident Jewish settlers stole the olive crop of Palestinian farmers of the village of Masha to the west of the northern West Bank city of Salfit whose fields lie behind the apartheid wall.

A number of farmers in the village said that settlers from the settlement of Etz Efraim, which is built on confiscated Palestinian land and lies on the other side of the apartheid wall, harvested their olive groves. They added that when they managed to reach their fields they discovered that most olive trees have already been harvested by the Jewish settlers.