- Human RightsPalestine
- March 25, 2008
- 2 minutes read
PA Agriculture minister condemns Israel for killing Palestinian farmers
Dr. Mohamed Al-Agha, the agriculture minister in the PA caretaker government, strongly denounced the Israeli occupation for targeting Palestinian farmers while working in their lands the latest of them was farmer Yousef Abu Daher, 55, who was shot deliberately by IOF troops in Khan Younis.
In a press statement received by the PIC, Dr. Agha warned that the ongoing Israeli aggression in the Gaza border areas would double the suffering of unarmed Palestinian citizens especially farmers who suffer greatly by bulldozing their farmland and the closure of crossings before their agricultural products.
He also deplored the Israeli uprooting of hundreds of yielding trees and damaging about 90 dunums of agricultural lands north of Al-Khalil city in the West Bank, pointing out that the daily losses of the agricultural sector in Gaza alone is estimated at about $200,000 as a result of the Israeli siege and aggression.
The minister in this regard appealed to international human rights and legal organizations to pressure the Israeli occupation to stop its assaults on Palestinian farmers and their lands.
The department of public relations in the agricultural ministry revealed in a statistical report that the losses of the agricultural sector during the last Israeli invasion east of Jabaliya, northern Gaza Strip, amounted to about $250,000 in an area estimated at one square kilometer.
The department said that the ministry intends after documenting those losses to compensate the Palestinian farmers whose lands were sabotaged by IOF troops.
The ministry called on human rights and legal institutions to document the Israeli violations against the Palestinian agriculture sector and to work on conveying the real image of the Israeli aggression.