Israeli settlers uproot hundreds of olive trees in occupied West Bank

Groups of Israeli settlers on Thursday uprooted hundreds of olive trees in the south of the occupied West Bank, local residents told The New Arab.

Ahmed Hamada, a father-of-three from Yatta, a town south of Hebron, said that the settlers uprooted about 60 olive trees from his farm.

Settlers also uprooted the olive trees from land belonging to the Jaafrah family in the town of Tarqumiya, north of Hebron.

Atta Jaafrah, the owner of the land, told The New Arab that he lost about 300 olive saplings he had only recently planted.

Jaafrah said that he and his family "suffer a lot from the settlers' violations on their agricultural land".

The West Bank is divided into three administrative areas; Area A under Palestinian control, Area B under joint Palestinian-Israeli control, and Area C under full Israeli control.

Hamada and Jaafrah's land is located in Area C, which is under complete Israeli control.

Fouad al-Amour, a local land activist, told The New Arab that this had been the third time that settlers had destroyed Palestinian groves in the are this month.

He said that the destruction of olive trees "was intended to connect the colonial settlement of Adora with that of Telem."

Over 700,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, in violation of international law.

The number of settlers has almost tripled since 1993, when there were an estimated 252,000. The number of illegal colonial settlements has leapt from 144 to 515 in that time.

Acts of settler violence include home and mosque arson, stone-throwing, and the uprooting crops and olive trees.