Locals note that there are likely to be significant undercounts of settler attacks involving the olive harvest that occurred between October 1 and November 10 according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
OCHA notes that 87 affected communities have doubled since 2023, primarily as a result of the expansion of settler settlements and infrastructure into new areas of the occupied West Bank.
Moustafa Badaha, 48, lives in a small house among these Othmans-owned olive groves on the other side of Deir Ammar.
Another settler outpost was constructed just south of Moustafa’s property in July. Since then, Mosstafa has captured footage of settlers stealing farm equipment, property damage, and breaking his fence.
Ein Ayyoub, a Bedouin community of 130 people south of the village, was also attacked by colonists from this outpost, forcing them to flee, eventually being made a “closed military zone” by military orders.
Ali Abu al-Kaak Badaha, 65, the mayor of Deir Ammar, claims that settlers have been attempting to enter villagers’ farms in eastern and southern Deir Ammar for years.
He continued, adding that the villages have been completely cut off this year, and that the settlers have now started attacking the villagers on the west of the village, where Moustafa’s property is located, with the aid of Israeli soldiers.
The Deir Ammar villagers were frightened when settlers from this outpost decided to release their cows to feed on the village’s west-facing groves.
The Israeli settlers also plagiarize the farms, according to the mayor, removing plastic sheets, tarps, and olives from the harvest.
Everywhere you go for olive harvest this year, the settlers find you, according to Izzat. They then attack you.
According to Kai Jack, a field coordinator for the Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR), which provides Palestinian farmers with a protective presence, there is a pattern to how the settlers halt the harvest.
“Very frequently, settlers first notice us, who can then be seen on their phones, and within a few minutes, the army shows up,” said Jack.
It’s obvious that they are cooperating, they say.
On October 16, Jack and about 50 other standing solidarity activists from RHR and Standing Together accompanied some Deir Ammar villagers to pick olives on the west side, close to Moustafa’s property, to pick the fruit.
Two Israeli female soldiers arrived five minutes after arriving and starting to pick up the group, telling them to leave the area because it was a military-contained area.
The soldiers continued to pick olives even though they had no official orders.
More Israelis showed up fifteen minutes later, some wearing military uniforms, some wearing masked uniforms, and others wearing partially military fatigues, according to Jack, who noted that there was “no clear separation between the settlers and the soldiers.”
Soon after receiving a closed military zone order, some armed settlers began to chase the locals, throwing rocks at them, with the soldiers slowing down to stop them.
Source: Aljazeera
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