Video: Settlers set fire to fields and attack Palestinian peasants
A video, shot on 17 May 2019 and published on 22 May by the human rights NGO B’Tselem, shows Israeli settlers burning agricultural land belonging to Palestinian families in the village of Burin. It shows Israeli soldiers participating in the aggression, protecting settlers and preventing Palestinian peasants from intervening and extinguishing the fire.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported the changing stances in the Israeli army’s communication that first accused Palestinian peasants of burning their own land, before acknowledging the settlers’ involvement after the video was published.
Not an isolated act:
According to a report by the Jerusalem Institute of Applied Research (ARIJ), a non-governmental organization working on research projects on agriculture and natural resources in Palestine, the fire is not an isolated act.
The report, published in 2014, focuses on the village of Burin and states that Palestinian peasants in this village are denied access to their land and are frequently victims of land confiscations, attacks, robberies and crop fires by settlers and the occupying army.
Crimes carried out by settlers have not stopped in recent years. No day goes by without several attacks being recorded in different parts of the West Bank and often with the complicity of the occupying army and in full view of everyone. These crimes resulted in the burning of thousands of dunums* and the destruction of thousands of trees. This does not stop here. Settlers have killed several Palestinian peasants such as the Douabcheh family in the village of Douma. Recently, a settler who was involved in the murder of Palestinian citizen Aicha Rabi was released by the court run by the Ocupation.
Fuad Abu Seif, Director of the Union of Agricultural Workers Committee UAWC, a member of La Via Campesina
Today and every day….
Just yesterday, Union of Agricultural Workers Committee UAWC reported another attack on Palestinian pastoralists by armed settlers in the village of Khalat Hamad, with the complicity of the army. A breeder was wounded and his brother arrested by the Israeli military.
dunum: unit of measurement of agricultural land used in Palestine.
1 dunum : 1000 m²