New Crime Against olive trees; uprooting hundreds of trees / Tubas governorate

• Violation: cutting and uprooting 472 olive trees.
• Location: Bardala village – Northern Jordan Valley / Tubas .
• Date: 05/02/2019.
• Perpetrator: The Israeli occupation forces and office of government properties.
• Victims: 5 Palestinian families.

Description:

The Israeli occupation forces and an officer from office of government properties raided Bardala and carried on uprooting and vandalizing hundreds of trees, Under claims that the land is the government’s property.

In the same context, the occupation forces ravaged 4 agricultural dunums cultivated with chickpeas and destroyed the crops.

The following table shows more information about the damages:

Some of the destroyed trees

One of the affected farmers, Mahmoud Sawafta (48) told LRC reporter that this sabotage aims to destroy one of the main sources of income for the village i.e. agriculture, as Bardala is a small agricultural village , that is severely affected by the occupation’s cruelty and measures against agricultural sector.

About Bardala :[1]

The village is situated 25 km to the north of Tubas. It is surrounded by the Green Line (north), Raba (west), Ain al Baeda (east) and Tubas (south).

It has a population of 1607 people according to a 2017 census. It’s total area is 18329 dunum, 404 of which is built-up area.

The Israeli occupation devoured 252 dunums of its land to open the  bypasses road #’90. It also confiscated 819 dunums to build the Separation Wall(8197 in length)  and isolated 2100 dunums of Bardala land as a result.

According to Oslo Accords, 90% of the village is area C, i.e. under Israeli authority while only 5% is area B.

Area B (910 dunum)

Area C (16845 dunum)

[1] GIS-LRC