Muhammad al-Manasreh, farmer
I live in Bani Na'im, a village located six kilometers east of Hebron. My family has a 500 dunum tract of land in the al-Hajuj valley. The valley is just to the north of the settlement Pene Hever.
The farmers who own lands near the settlement, including myself, have not managed to harvest olives this year due to fear of settler attacks. Some of the village farmers spoke about this to the Civil Administration. We were told to supply them with a list of the farmers who own lands near the settlement and their ID numbers in order to coordinate their arrival to the fields with the army. On Sunday, 27 October, at around 10:00 A.M., I went to the Civil Administration office in Hebron along with other farmers form Bani Na'im, including Ruhi Hussein Qassem and Ibrahim 'Ali al-Haj, to hand in the list. We gave it to a man called Tzion. He told us to give him the license plate numbers of the cars we would be taking to the lands. We told him we couldn't know what cars we would take in advance. Tzion gave us a contact number for a man called Tareq. Tzion said Tareq worked in the Civil Administration and would be in charge of our case. We called him that day to coordinate our arrival at the lands the next day. He said that he would wait for us with some soldiers near the grave of the prophet Yachin, some two kilometers south of Bani Na'im.
On the morning of Monday, 28 October, a group of about thirty farmers, mostly women, went to the lands in five cars. On the way, we passed near the meeting place Tareq had mentioned. No one was waiting there. We went to the lands. We stopped at the top of the valley and started walking down toward the olive groves. When we got to a road which runs some 500 meters from the groves, shots were fired at us from the hill across the valley. The Pene Hever settlement is on that hill. I looked to where the shooting had come from. There was a settler, in civilian clothing standing near the gate. He was shooting. About a hundred meters from there, there was another man, in uniform. I think it was the settlement's guard. When he heard the shots and saw that the bullets hit the ground, close to us, we ran up the valley toward the cars. The shooting stopped a few minutes later.
Some of the farmers wanted to leave, to get away from the danger. Others wanted to take the risk and go back to harvest the olives. Eventually, everyone agreed to try to get back to the lands. When I got to my plot, I was surprised to see that the branches of most of my olive trees had been cut and that the olives had been harvested. Only one tree remained in tact, with fruit on the branches. I think the settlers harvested our olives.
The other farmers' plots were undamaged. While we were in the groves, the shooting started again. It lasted for more than fifteen minutes. One of the farmers called Tareq from the Civil Administration. I don't know what Tareq told that farmer, but I saw the man in the uniform going over to the settler who had shot at us and talking to him. After that, the shooting stopped. My family and I stayed in our plot until about 2:30 P.M. Some of the farmers stayed longer.
My plot usually yields 3000 kilograms of olives per season. This time, we harvested only 70 kilos. I still don't know whether the trees that are right by the settlement's fence still have fruit, because I can't get to them. It's too dangerous.
Muhammad Ibrahim al-Manasreh, age 52, is married and the father of nine. He works as a farmer and lives in Bani Na'im. The testimony was taken by Musa Abu Hashahsh, at the witness' home, on 5 November, 2002.