Jewish Settlers Graze Cattle on Palestinian Crops, Uproot Olive Saplings

January 6, 2021

Illegal Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. (Photo: via Twitter)

 Jewish settlers today grazed their cattle on Palestinian crops in Khirbet As-Samra in the northern Jordan Valley, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.

Aref Daraghmeh, a local activist, told WAFA that Jewish settlers from a nearby illegal colonial outpost allowed dozens of their cows to graze on the rain-fed crops of Palestinian farmers in the hamlet, damaging the crops and causing immense losses to the farmers depend on agriculture for their livelihoods.

The Jordan Valley covers an area of about 1.6 million dunams (1,600 km2) and constitutes around 30 percent of the total occupied West Bank. According to a previous government report, the Valley includes about 280,000 dunams of arable land, 50,000 of which are still used by Palestinians and 27,000 by illegal Jewish settlers.

The majority of the Jordan Valley is under full Israeli military control, despite being within the West Bank. Meanwhile, at least 44 percent of the total land in the Jordan Valley has been reappropriated by Israeli forces for military purposes and training exercises.

Meanwhile, in the Nablus area, Jewish settlers uprooted and stole scores of olive saplings in Jalud village, south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

Ghassan Daghlas, a local official who monitors settlements activity in the northern West Bank, told WAFA that a group of settlers sneaked their way into the southern part of the village, where they uprooted and stole 150 olive saplings.

The landowner was identified as Mohamoud Fawzi Mohammad.