3 October 2019, Far’ata: Settlers steal olives off some 50 trees

On Thursday, 3 October 2019, the Salah family went to their farmland, where they have 18 dunams of olive groves with mature, fruit-bearing trees. As the settlement of Havat Gilad was established in close proximity, the family can no longer access the land without prior coordination with the military. On 3 October 2019, after coordinating with the military, several members of the family went to the land accompanied by five activists from Rabbis for Human Rights. Went they got there, they found that 47 of their trees had already been harvested.

Ibrahim Salah, 66, a father of seven, told B’Tselem field researcher 'Abdulkarim Sadi about years of harm the family has suffered at the hands of the settlers:

Image

In recent years, settlers have repeatedly vandalized our trees. They steal fruit, break branches and sometimes uproot entire trees. To keep our olives safe, I asked that we be allowed to harvest as early as possible this year, before the settlers steal our olives. I managed to get a permit for the 2nd and 3rd of October, but it didn’t help. On the first day of the harvest, we filled six sacks and took them with us. When we arrived on the second day, we were shocked to find that 47 of the trees had been harvested. An Israeli DCO officer came and toured the land with me, but said there was no way to help me except schedule a new date as compensation for what the settlers had done to me, so I could come early in the morning and harvest the remaining trees before the settlers stole what was left.