- Violation: chopping down olive trees.
- Date of violation: 12/02/2022.
- Location: Surif town / Hebron governorate.
- The aggressor: the settlers of “Beit Aiyn”.
- The affected party: the citizen Guevara Hemeidat.
The violation details:
Settlers from the colony of “Beit Eiyn”, which is built on the confiscated lands of the Palestinian citizens attacked Palestinian olive orchards and cut down a number of olive trees. The attack was carried out on Saturday, February 12, 2022. On that day, the citizen Guevara Mahmoud Hassan Hamidat, 42 years old, went to a plot of land owned by his family in the Dahr al-Mansara area, east of Surif, and found out that a number of olive trees have been cut down and he saw a number of colonists wandering in the area and carrying in their hands saw machines. Mr. Hemeidat gave the following account to LRC field researcher:
“When I arrived at our lands at about eight o’clock in the morning, I saw about 30 colonists, some of them wearing masks and accompanied by two dogs. I found that a number of trees have been cut down in an area of about four acres. Having seen me the colonists fled away and gathered on a hill close to our lands and started watching me. Then, I called the Surif municipality members who rushed to the scene of the attack to inspect the damage. The colonists came back and started throwing stones at us. After a while, Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene and started shouting at us and asking us to leave the scene at the time the group of colonists were throwing stones at us. When we refused to leave, the soldiers began to fire tear gas canisters at us.”
Mr. Hemeidat clarified that as a result of this attack, 15 olive trees at the age of 17 years old, and 70 trees at the age of 5 years were cut down.
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Pictures 1-6: damage caused by the colonists’ attack to the olive trees in Surif
The affected citizen explained that the colony of “Bait Aiyn” is located about 500-600 meters meter away from their land. Few years ago, the colonists set up a tent at the western edge of the colony, from which they began to launch vandalism attacks on our lands and expel farmers while tending their fields, and block agricultural roads with stones.
A glimpse on Bait Aiyn colony:
Bait Aiyn colony began to appear on the map north of Beit Ummar and Surif towns in 1989, through the installation of mobile homes, as part of the process of expanding the settlement bloc of Gush Etzion which, now a days, have more than 20 colonies. Lands from the towns of Beit Ummer and Surif as well as the village of Al Jaba’a were confiscated for the construction of this colony which, ever since, has continued to expand west ward to seize more land. Bait Aiyn is resided by about 1050 fanatic Jews who very often attack Palestinian farmers, shepherds and land owners from Beit Ummar, al-Jaba’a and Surif citizens. Even, the head of the Jewish terrorist groups in the occupied West Bank during the nineties of the last century was a resident of the Bait Aiyn colony.
Prepared by
The Land Research Center
LRC
