The Shreiteh family owns an approximately 10-dunam plot of land with olive trees that are about 100 years old. The settlement of Haresha was established some 200 meters away. The family used to come to their land undisturbed and, on a good year extracted, some 30 containers of olive oil. In recent years, however, settlers have repeatedly driven them away whenever they come to their land. Last year, settlers even pitched a tent there and the family were too afraid to harvest their trees.
This year, on 30 October 2019, at around 2:30 P.M., while three family members were working on their land, five settlers climbed a nearby hill and threw stones at them. The three Palestinians fled, with the settlers chasing them and throwing stones at them. The next day, two members of the family tried to approach the land, but fled after armed settlers shouted at them from a distance to stay away and swore at them. The two Palestinians returned about fifteen minutes later but in the meantime, more settlers had arrived and shouted at them to leave. A short while later, they went back to work but kept to the grove farthest from the settlers.
Fatimah Shreiteh, 56, a mother of six, described her feelings to B'Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad:
I won’t sacrifice my sons. As long as I feel it’s dangerous to go to the land, I won’t go near it. God will compensate me. What can we do? We’re constantly anxious, afraid we’ll get attacked or killed at any time. It’s a remote area and nobody comes here. We’re so tired of it. We work hard our whole lives and in the end, we can’t harvest our olives. A gang of criminals who answer to no one are hurting innocent people. It hurts so much, I feel like my heart is breaking as I speak. We trust in God alone. I have nothing else to say.