The Palestinian residents of the village of Jinsafut suffer on yearly basis from colonist attacks during the olive harvest season. That is despite the claim of the Israeli occupation forces that they carry the necessary coordination to assure a “successful” season. Occupation forces insist on yearly basis that Palestinians of Jinsafut should coordinate their access as early as possible in the season as not to provide the colonists with the chance to hijack the harvest before the Palestinians. However, the coordination usually takes place late due to the Jewish holidays which coincide with the harvest season leading to the stealing of the harvest by the colonists. That is due to the fact that during Jewish holidays Palestinians are usually prevented from carrying out their usual daily practices while colonists are allowed to do whatever they want including stealing Palestinian hard-earned olives and preventing them from reaching their lands. This year, colonists from Karni Shomron have placed fences around the colony in order to grab more Palestinian lands which made Palestinian reach the stage of giving up on reaching their land as occupation forces prevent them from doing so under the guise of security.
Israeli Colonists Steal 4,000 Kilos of Olives:
The aforementioned fences traps within it more than 2,000 dunums of Palestinian lands filled with olive trees. Such fences prevent Palestinians from reaching and looking after their lands leading it to become less and less fertile. In addition, colonists steal the olive crops on yearly basis before the rightful owners of the lands are allowed access to them as what took place in the past two seasons. This year, the Palestinians were allowed into their lands as late as October 26th, 2008 only to find out that large quantities of olives were collected (stolen) by the colonists. According to the land owners, the stolen olive quantities can fill at least 80 50-kilo bags (at least 4,000 kilograms). Moreover, the fences did not only allow the stealing of the olives, it allowed the colonists to cut down most of the olive trees owned by Mr. Saleh Ayyoub, Mr. Mohammad Najib Ayyoub and Mr. Najih Ayyoub. Also, water is leaking in large quantities into the lands of Mr. Mohammad Mustafa Eid and Mr. Sayel Ahmad Mustafa Eid which led to the hardening of a large number of the olive trees. The leakage is still ongoing as the Israeli Water Company (a.k.a. Makarot) deliberately did not bother to fix it as to cause the maximum damage to Palestinian lands trapped within the fences.
Photos 1 & 2: The leaked water causing irreversible damage to Palestinian lands
Photos 3 & 4: Note the hardening olive trees and the state in which the lands
are in due to the inability of Palestinian land owners of accessing it to take care of it.
The following table lists the names of owners whose lands are trapped within the fences surrounding the colony. Other relevant data is also listed:
|
Name |
Area in dunums |
No. of Olive Trees |
No. of Damaged Trees and the Reason |
Quantities of Stolen Olives in Kgs. |
|
Mohammad Najib Rashid Ayyoub |
40 |
280 |
80 cut down |
1,000 |
|
Mohammad Mustafa Eid |
48 |
300 |
50 burnt + 50 hardening due to excessive water. |
1,000 |
|
Sayel Ahmad Mustafa Eid |
48 |
300 |
50 burnt + 50 hardening due to excessive water. |
1,000 |
|
Saleh Omar Saleh Ayyoub |
23 |
150 |
90 cut down |
|
|
Najeh Ahmad Mohammad Ayyoub |
60 |
340 |
50 cut down |
|
|
Mohammad Abdullah Mohammad Eid |
29 |
100 |
|
|
|
Mohammad Masoud Eid |
20 |
50 |
|
|
|
Saleh Abdel rahim Hasan Bashir |
30 |
120 |
|
|
|
Abdel Qader Abdullah Sabra |
13 |
30 |
|
|
|
Mustafa Ahamd Ali Basheer |
90 |
600 |
|
1,000 |
|
TOTAL |
401 |
2270 |
420 |
4,000 |
Most of the 2,000 dunums trapped within the fences are left without being attended to by its owners due to the fact that they cannot reach it. As such, the lands has become looking like small forests with weeds growing uncontrollably and olive trees hardening as time passes by.
Prepared by:
The Land Research Center
LRC
