New outpost established in Tulkarim

Violation: establishing a new outpost.
Location: Shofa village / Tulkarem Governorate.
Date: May 2020.
Perpetrator: Settlers of “Avnei Hefetz”.
Victims: People of the village.

Description:

Early May, a group of radical settlers were seen setting up a new outpost north west Shofa village , and only 100 m away from “Avnei Hefetz” illegal settlement. Reportedly , The perpetrators are religious fanatics , and started the outpost by setting up caravans on a 2 dunums plot , they also leveled and cultivated other 5 dunums , and opened a road that takes to the outpost. the outpost is now devouring 13 dunums of Shofa lands in natural block (2), the occupation claim that the area is “governmental properties”, and prohibited its real owners from using it.

Photos 1-3: The new outpost and road on Shofa lands

A map that shows the location of the outpost

The moment they established the outpost, the fanatic settlers prohibited farmers from : Shofa , Kafr Labed , Shofa and Kaffa frm cultivating or even accessing their lands. Noteworthy, attacks against farmers escalated rapidly since the establishment of the new illegal outpost in the area.

Reported attacks after establishing the outpost:

In the early hours following the sunrise of Tuesday May 19^th , a group of settlers opened a road to connect the outpost to vast areas in Shofa and Kafa south Tulkarim.

Murad Ad-Darubi from Shofa told LRC:

“We woke up at 2:00 am on heavy mechaneries’ noise , and it turned out that illegal settlers brought two bulldozers and started opening a road (1.5 km * 4 m) north the new outpost on confiscated lands from Shofa and Kafr Labed, The ravaging resulted uprooting 65 olive trees aging 8 years old.

The new road will facilitate annexing tens of agricultural dunums to this new outpost , most of these lands are registered as (governmental properties) , in the occupation’s records .”

Early Saturday and Sunday 23-24 May 2020 a group of fanatic settlers from the outpost uprooted and sabotaged 82 olive trees aging 8 years old in natural block (2) in Shofa lands.

Affected farmer Jamal Hamad told LRC:

“Five years ago, my brothers and I revived my late father’s plot through planting olive trees, and we visit the land on a daily basis. Saturday, I was shocked to see that the plot have gone under an attack and most the trees were uprooted . The next morning, the fanatic settlers came again and destroyed the rest of the trees.”

Photos 4-7: The uprooted trees

Reportedly, Illegal settlers of the “Avnei Hefetz” cut and sabotaged tens of olive trees in surrounding olive groves , and were seen ravaging vast areas of lands .

About Shofa:[1]

9.5km to the southeast of Tulkarm city, Shofa is inhabited with 2829 people on a total area of 10,969 dunums, of which 343 dunums are considered the built-up area.

It should be marked that the colony of Avnei Hefetz was established on 722 confiscated dunums from Shofa village in 1987. Now, it populates 964 colonists.

To the west of Shofa, Enav colony was established on confiscated lands from the village in 1987. The colony is of 722 dunums and inhabited by 964 settlers.

The bypass roads, especially bypass 557 took over 420 dunums from the village’s lands.

According to Oslo Accords, the village’s lands are classified as follows: