Palestinians in the occupied West Bank face increased attacks by Israeli settlers and violence from the Israeli army at the start of the important olive harvest season, the UN has said.
The international body's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) accused Israel on Friday of using “warlike” tactics in the West Bank amid a rise in killings and attacks by settlers since the olive harvest began last week. . Nine people were killed by Israeli forces between October 8 and 14, OCHA said.
It also recorded 32 settler attacks since early October against Palestinians and their properties related to the olive harvest. In all, about 600 slow-growing olive trees have been burned, vandalized or stolen by settlers, the agency said.
In the most notorious incident to date, Hanan Abd Rahman Abu Salameh, a 59-year-old woman, was killed on Thursday while picking olives in Faqqua, near Jenin, by a soldier who fired about 10 shots at her.
Munir Barakat, a member of the Faqqua village council, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Israel Defense Forces personnel came to gather details about the shooting, but did not express hope in the army's willingness or ability to investigate. Last year, less than 1% of complaints against Israeli soldiers resulted in a conviction, according to the US State Department's annual human rights report.
“The family and we all know that this does not mean that no one is going to take responsibility for the murder of an innocent woman, a mother and a grandmother whose only crime was going out to harvest olives,” he told Haaretz.
An OCHA spokesperson, Jens Laerke, said: “Frankly, it is very worrying that these are not just attacks on people, but also on their olive groves. “The olive harvest is an economic lifeline for tens of thousands of Palestinian families in the West Bank.” He said UN agencies were assessing how they could support the Palestinians.
Olives are the most important agricultural product in the West Bank and, according to the Palestinian Farmers Union, can bring farmers a total of $70 million (£55 million) a year. It is estimated that between a quarter and a third of the Palestinian population in the West Bank work with trees or their products, such as oil and soap.
Before the Hamas attack on October 7 last year, the olive harvest in Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank was largely coordinated by local Palestinian authorities and the Israeli army to allow farmers to reach their trees on scheduled dates. specific. However, over the past two harvests, Palestinians say access to their own land has been severely limited.
Violence in the West Bank has increased in tandem with the war in Gaza over the past 12 months. Dozens of Israelis have also been killed in Palestinian street attacks.
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