The head of the Deir Ghassir village council, Eid Hammad, announced that the Israeli army prevents farmers from accessing their land to harvest olives, while allowing settlers to access it. The village, located northeast of Ramallah, faces restrictions that prevent Palestinians from reaching most of its 33,000 dunums of agricultural land, with residents able to utilize only about 4,000 dunums.
For his part, Palestinian farmer Abdul Karim Ajaj stated that he has been denied access to more than 30 dunums of olive trees for four years. Ajaj noted that settlers uprooted 36 fruit-bearing trees from his land last year, causing his production to drop from about 100 tins annually to just 7 tins.
He added that the army set up military checkpoints at the village entrances and prevented solidarity activists and volunteers from reaching it, following a call by the Anti-Wall and Settlement Resistance Committee to organize a volunteer day. Channel 13 reported that Israeli Rabbi Dov Lior permitted the seizure of the olive harvest from Palestinian lands, claiming the land was "stolen" and that harvesting was "permissible" under the pretext of security risks.
Deir Ghassir is located in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, where approximately 750,000 settlers live in 194 settlements and about 400 outposts. Human rights organizations accuse Israeli authorities of failing to stop settler attacks and hold perpetrators accountable, amid escalating assaults on farmers and their crops during the olive season.
Source: Anadolu Agency
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