Assaults, stone attacks, cut or burned olive trees, destroyed agricultural material or stolen crops are routine during olive harvesting for Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank, harassed every year by Israeli settlers settlements close to their land.

“Each year is worse than the last,” says Mohamed Haj Mohamed, a farmer with several plots of olive trees in Jalud, a central West Bank village whose perimeter is increasingly surrounded by settlements that can be seen in the surrounding hills.

The olive season – vital for 100,000 Palestinian families who live on it or partly depend on their income – began in October, until the end of November, and that year started in the middle of a voltage spike in the West Bank which has seen an increase in settler attacks.

burnt olive trees

At least the United Nations Agency for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has registered 22 colonist attacks which ended in injury or material damage, only between 11 and 24 October.

“They injured a Palestinian farmer and more than 800 olive trees burned or damaged“, while” large quantities of products were stolen by people identified as settlers “, OCHA detailed in its bi-weekly report on the Palestinian territory.

It was the settlers who destroyed Haj Mohamed’s 120 olive trees this year, and every time he and his relatives go to work they do so with fear of being attackedas they have done in the past, so they are sometimes accompanied by international and Israeli activists to provide protection.

“Sometimes they attack us and beat us, they steal material and work machineryand in 2021 they stole part of my harvest, “says the farmer, while harvesting olives with a group of volunteers from the Israeli NGO Rabbis for Human Rights, which for 28 years has organized teams to accompany farmers to the West Bank.

“There’s a increase in violence every year“but” the rebound has been greater “this 2022, says Dani Brodsky, a member of the NGO, which seeks to” help Palestinians access their land safely “and” support them by harvesting olive trees they may not be able to harvest ” lack of time.

Like Haj Mohamed, many West Bank farmers are unable to freely enter parts of their farms, especially if they are close to settlements, and need special permission from the Israeli military authority to enter, in many cases for limited days.

This is a problem because “they don’t have time for the whole harvest,” and sometimes settlers entered their land earlier and destroyed or damaged the olive trees, according to Brodsky, who regrets “the violation of rights” and that Israeli forces do not provide real security to the peasants powerless before the settlers.

Army complicity?

Claims that the army does not act when settlers attack are repeated every year. Incidents – some recorded and broadcast on social networks – in which Israelis throw stones or while attacking Palestinians the soldiers do nothing or look the other way They are common.

Witnesses and human rights activists accuse some troops of complicity or even joining the attacks.

“Israel has never helped protect the Palestinian farmer, on the contrary, the soldiers are with the settlers to protect them,” Samir Naam, who recently suffered an unpunished attack by a guard in a settlement near his farm, tells EFE. . in the north of the West Bank, in the Nablus area, particularly sensitive to settler violence.

“The settlers come, they beat us and they won’t let me raise my hand to defend myself, because the army supports them,” Naam complains.

The Israeli army assures that it “acts at all times for maintain law and order“and” stop the violent acts directed against the Palestinians and their property “.

The attacks also hit Israeli activists: last October a 70-year-old woman accompanying a farmer to her land near Bethlehem was beaten by settlers with clubs.

She was hospitalized for several days with a broken hand and several ribs and a punctured lung. A week later, the Israeli police had not arrested anyone.

However, the current cycle of violence is more severe and is already part of that it is the deadliest year in the West Bank occupied since 2006: more than 140 Palestinians, partly minors and civilians, died in armed clashes and violent incidents with Israeli forces in 2022; while on the Israeli side 23 people died, including 16 civilians in the attacks.

So far this year, OCHA represents 577 colonist attacks until 24 October, a figure that already exceeds 496 for the whole of last year.

“People are afraid. We just want to work happily and go home safely,” says Naam, who regrets “the terrifying situation.”

The author is an EFE journalist