Khaberni - Moayad Sha'ban, the head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Authority, stated that the occupation army and settlers have committed a total of 259 assaults against olive pickers, since the season began in the first week of October until now.
In a press statement issued on Tuesday, he added that the authority's teams documented 41 assaults by the occupation army and 218 by settlers, noting that these assaults ranged from violent physical attacks, arrest campaigns, movement restrictions and denial of access, to intimidation in all its forms, and direct gunfire as occurred in the Tubas Governorate.
The assaults were concentrated in the governorates of Ramallah with 83, Nablus with 69, followed by Hebron with 34.
Sha'ban added that this season also recorded 63 cases of movement restriction and terrorizing of olive pickers, in addition to 44 cases of beating and assault on farmers.
Sha'ban noted that this season, which coincided with the ongoing aggression on the Palestinian people, is considered the most difficult and dangerous in recent decades, due to the army and settlers exploiting war systems to commit crimes, supported by many policies and legislations that enhance cases of assault and terror, and restrictions, especially closing provinces and delivering weapons to settler militias, and, even more dangerously, exempting them from accountability and trial, adding that this season witnessed a deliberate imposition of closed military zones on agricultural lands.
Sha'ban added that 125 assault incidents were recorded against lands planted with olives this season, including 46 operations of cutting, breaking, and bulldozing lands planted with olives that resulted in the destruction of a total of 1070 olive trees.
He pointed out that the escalating pattern of assaults documented by the authority's documentation teams over past seasons indicates a policy that has become significantly tangible in targeting the Palestinian olive season, showing an increase in assaults from 136 in the 2022 season to 333 in the 2023 season, reaching 407 assaults in 2024, and 259 assaults so far this season, which clearly demonstrates the magnitude of targeting faced by Palestinian farmers.
