Palestine Chronicle Staff, October 20, 2024
Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip were only able to have access to their fields during the one-week temporary ceasefire last November.
The National Office for the Defense of Land and Resistance to Settlement said on Saturday that Israel’s raging war on Gaza has destroyed 75 per cent of olive trees in the besieged Gaza Strip, Anadolu news agency reported.
“The war has had a destructive impact on the olive sector, annihilating more than 75% of olive trees in the region,” the organization said in a report.
According to the national office report, Palestinians in the Strip were only able to have access to their fields during the one-week temporary ceasefire last November, which allowed them to collect their olive harvest in areas that were untouched by Israeli sabotaging whether through uprooting of the trees or destruction of the fields.
As for the occupied West Bank, the report indicated that the Israeli occupation forces “revoked all permits granted to farmers for olive picking, effectively preventing them from accessing their lands,” Aandolu said.
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The national office also stated that the violence of the illegal Jewish settlers prevented Palestinian farmers from collecting their harvest during the olives’ harvesting season.
Estimates show that over 23,700 acres of land planted with olives in the occupied West Bank were affected as they were declared closed military zones by the Israeli occupation authorities, according to Anadolu.
Agricultural Lands Destroyed
Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor disclosed in a report on September 26 that Israel has destroyed hundreds of dunams of agricultural land, depriving Palestinians in the northern Gaza Strip of agricultural land and resources vital to survival.
“This destruction is part of a larger Israeli plan that dates back to last October,” Euro-Med said in a report published” on September 26.” Under this plan, Israeli forces have worked to eliminate almost 80% of the agricultural land in the Gaza Strip from use by Palestinians.”
Israel has done this either “by isolating it in preparation for its forcible annexation to the so-called ‘buffer zone’ or by bulldozing or destroying it by other means, such as bombardment—all of which are in violation of international law.”
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“This is an expression of Israel’s insistence on committing genocide against Palestinians in the enclave,” the Geneva-based rights group said.
The Euro-Med field team in Gaza said that in the early hours of Tuesday, September 25, Israeli forces stormed the area of Al-Shimaa in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, accompanied by military bulldozers.
They began their bulldozing operations, destroying “more than 500 dunums of newly replanted agricultural land, which was supposed to sustain the needs of the people living in northern Gaza, who are subject to an arbitrary siege and systematic starvation by Israel.”
‘Increasingly Risky Activity’
In parallel with the beginning of the war in Gaza, a number of violent incidents by the Israeli occupation army and illegal Jewish settlers have also been registered in the occupied West Bank, where a Palestinian woman was recently killed while harvesting her olives.
Israeli forces shot and killed the 59-year-old Palestinian woman as she harvested olives with her family in the village of Faqqu’a, east of Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.
Hanan Abu Salameh was shot in the back on October 17 and attempts to resuscitate her failed, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, cited by the Middle East Monitor (MEMO).
During the first week of the official Palestinian olive harvest season, the UN Human Rights Office recorded dozens of incidents of violence against Palestinian harvesters and disruption of access to olive groves.
On October 17, UN spokesperson Farhan Haq warned that increasing attacks by illegal settlers during the olive harvest are endangering the security and livelihoods of Palestinians in the region.
Haq noted that since the beginning of October, 32 illegal settler attacks have been documented, leading to 39 Palestinian injuries and the destruction or theft of approximately 600 olive trees.
According to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, there have been 2,777 illegal settler attacks in the occupied West Bank since the start of the Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023. These attacks have resulted in the deaths of 19 Palestinians and displaced 292 families from 28 Bedouin communities.
Genocide Continues
Flouting a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire, Israel has faced international condemnation amid its continued brutal offensive on Gaza.
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 42,500 Palestinians have been killed, and 99,546 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7, 2023.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
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Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Later in the war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians began moving from the south to central Gaza in a constant search for safety.
(PC, Anadolu)
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