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Thousands of Palestine’s olive trees have been destroyed or damaged during attacks by Israel’s illegal settlers across the occupied West Bank in 2013, an NGO says.
Al-Tadamun Foundation for Human Rights said in an annual report on Wednesday that an estimated 8,000 trees, some of them hundreds of years old, were damaged and destroyed altogether.
"Settlers' attacks include uprooting, burning and cutting down olive trees… Olive groves were also flooded by wastewater from the settlements," said the rights group, adding, "We have been unable to count the hundreds of trees damaged in groves close to settlements due to Israeli security measures."
The group’s report shows an increase in such attacks.
According to villagers living south of the West Bank city of Nablus, Israeli settlers used chemicals in several cases in early June to burn 1,500 trees there. In the blaze that followed, more than 49 acres of prime agricultural land was also destroyed.
Twenty-four cases of vandalism by Israeli settlers were also documented in Nablus itself, the group said, adding almost 5,300 trees were destroyed.
According to Tadamun, the focus of such attacks was on villages south of Nablus, particularly the villages of Awarta, Qasra, Urif, Burin, Asira al-Qebliah, and Hawara.
Israeli settlers also launch attacks against Palestinians and their property as well as Islamic holy sites.
The presence and continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine has created a major obstacle for the efforts to establish peace in the Middle East.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 illegal settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East al-Quds in 1967.
The United Nations and most countries regard the Israeli settlements as illegal because the territories were captured by Israel in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbids construction on occupied lands.
PressTV - Israelis destroyed 1000s of olive trees in 2013: NGO
