On Thursday, 10 October 2019, at around 8:30 A.M., ‘Issa Ramadan, 59, a father of 12 from the village of Tell, went to pick olives on his land with three of his children: twins Wasim and Nassim, 15, and Fursan, 37. The DCO had set their harvest date for November but the family could not wait that long and decided to risk going to the land earlier. Other residents were also harvesting olives in the area.
At around 9:30 A.M., a military jeep drove up from the direction of the Havat Gilad settlement, which was established some 200 meters away. Ramadan and his children hid and watched as the soldiers went up to other residents, took their ID cards and ordered them to leave and report to the military camp in Huwarah. After everyone had left and the place was quiet, the Ramadan family went back to picking their olives. At that point, four settlers arrived, one of them armed. As the family tried to run away, ‘Issa Ramadan fell and broke his hand.
‘Issa Ramadan told B'Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i:
We’re a poor family. I was expecting to harvest a lot of olives, but now I don’t know what we’ll do. My hand is broken and it will take more than a month to heal. I won’t be able to work until then. Ever since the settlement was built, we’ve had trouble reaching our land. Every time we pick olives, we’re anxious and feel that we’re in danger.