Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are facing an increase in Israeli settler attacks and Israeli army violence at the start of the important olive harvest season, the UN has said.
The international body’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) accused Israel on Friday of using “war-like” tactics in the West Bank amid a rise in killings and settler attacks since the olive harvest got under way last week. Nine people were killed by Israeli forces between 8-14 October, OCHA said.
It also recorded 32 settler attacks since the beginning of October on Palestinians and their property related to the olive harvest. In total, about 600 slow-growing olive trees have been burned, vandalised or stolen by settlers, the agency said.
In the most high-profile incident to date, Hanan Abd Rahman Abu Salameh, a 59-year-old woman, was killed on Thursday while harvesting olives in Faqqua near Jenin by a soldier who fired about 10 shots at her.
Munir Barakat, a member of the Faqqua village council, told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that Israel Defense Forces personnel came to collect details about the shooting but he did not express hope in the army’s willingness or ability to investigate. Last year, fewer than 1% of complaints against Israeli soldiers ended in a conviction, according to the US state department’s annual human rights report.
“The family and everyone know that this doesn’t mean anyone will take responsibility for the killing of an innocent woman, a mother, and a grandmother whose only crime was going out to harvest olives,” he told Haaretz.
An OCHA spokesperson, Jens Laerke, said: “It is, frankly, very concerning that it’s not only attacks on people, but it’s attacks on their olive groves as well. The olive harvest is an economic lifeline for tens of thousands of Palestinian families in the West Bank.” He said UN agencies were assessing how they could support Palestinians.
Olives are the largest single agricultural product in the West Bank, and according to the Palestinian Farmers’ Union, can bring farmers a total of $70m (£55m) a year. Between a quarter and a third of the Palestinian population of the West Bank is estimated to work with the trees or their produce, such as oil and soap.
Before the Hamas attack of 7 October last year, the olive harvest in areas of the West Bank under Israeli control was for the most part coordinated by local Palestinian authorities and the Israeli military to allow farmers to reach their trees on specific dates. For the last two harvests, however, Palestinians say access to their own land has been severely limited.
Violence in the West Bank has surged in tandem with the war in Gaza over the past 12 months. Dozens of Israelis have also been killed in Palestinian street attacks.
