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by IMEMC & Agencies

Tuesday January 22, a number of armed extremist Israeli settlers invaded an orchard that belongs to a local resident of the Al-Khader city, near Bethlehem, and uprooted several olive saplings in addition to digging a road in the middle of the orchard.

Ahmad Salah, coordinator of the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Al-Khader, told the Palestine News & Info Agency (WAFA) that the settlers uprooted more than 50 saplings that belong to resident Khaled Saleh Salah, and prepared the land for a road they intend to pave on his land.

Salah said that this is not the first attack against the area, and added that extremist settlers repeatedly attack Palestinian orchards in the area, and repeatedly fenced Palestinian lands and orchards in order to “annex” the land to their settlement outposts.

He also said that a settler woman identified as Nadia Matar, of the Women In Green, is behind incitement that led to these attacks against the Palestinian orchards, and added that Matar previously installed a tent in the land of Khaled Salah, WAFA said.

The Women In Green movement, founded in 1993, is an extremist settler organization that claims to be a grassroots organization, and is financially supported by Israelis and internationals.

The movement believes that the “Land of Israel” is for the Jewish people, and states on its Webpage that it is “dedicated to safeguarding God’s given biblical homeland”.

The group is also called “Women In Green Hats”; in its statement, the group says that its members sometimes wear green hats “to show their opposition to abandoning parts of the homeland” by withdrawing from the occupied Palestinian territory.

“Our movement is dedicated to safeguarding our G-d given Biblical Homeland. We are popularly known as "the Women in Green" because of the green hats we sometimes wear to show our opposition to the abandonment of parts of our homeland and to the return of Israel to the "Green Line", the pre-1967 borders”, the mission statement of the group reads.

The group strongly believes that “the Land of Israel is for the Jewish People”, and that Israel should never withdraw from any part of the country, referring to the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.