 |
|
A Palestinian farmer from the village of Nahhalin inspects his land yesterday after it was set afire |
The incident occurred in Nahhalin village, which lies between the southern West Bank town of Bethlehem and the Beitar Illit settlement.
Osama Shakarna, head of the Nahhalin village council, told AFP more than 100 olive and fig trees had been destroyed in a fire on the northwest side of the village, which faces Beitar Illit, in a blaze he blamed on local settlers.
“Two settlers from Beitar Illit burned lands in Al Matabekh area, northwest of the village,” he said, adding that an army jeep was present at the time.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the incident, which came a day after the official start of the olive harvest, a time which is often fraught with tensions between Jewish settlers and Palestinian olive farmers.
A senior Israeli military commander in the West Bank said his forces had trained for the harvest season in a bid to prevent attacks that could spark violence.
“We are doing everything to make sure that extremists from our side don’t contribute to escalation,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The commander said he believed only a small percentage of Israeli settlers in the West Bank were involved in attacks on Palestinian property, including olive trees, and he denied that such incidents were on the rise.
“I think that in my region and even in the West Bank (as a whole), I don’t see it,” he said.
“Still of course there is a problem that most of those terrorists, I think that this is the best name to call them, that were involved in these incidents still weren’t captured and didn’t sit in jail and this is a problem.”
The Palestinians accuse Israeli forces of failing to protect them against Jewish extremists carrying out so-called “price tag” attacks in revenge for the demolition of settlements or militant attacks.
But the commander said it was impossible for Israeli forces to protect all the olive trees in the West Bank, despite their best efforts.
“We prepare ourselves like we prepare for an operation,” he added.
“We do a lot of co-ordination with those Palestinians; a lot of our forces, a lot of police forces, during October and the beginning of November invest only in this operation.”