Description

NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Dozens of settlers set fire to Palestinian fields in Nablus on Monday, a Palestinian Authority official said.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settler activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma'an that settlers from Shilo set fire to fields in the village of Qaryut, destroying nearly 15 dunams of land.

Armed settlers prevented villagers from approaching the land to extinguish the flames, he added.

Earlier, settlers torched two dunams of wheat fields in the south Hebron hills, according to official news agency Wafa.

Settlers from Maon settlement started the blaze, a local activist said, which villagers managed to prevent from spreading to nearby land and homes.

Israeli settlers on Monday also exhumed a number of graves and sprayed racist graffiti in the Sawiya village in Nablus, Daghlas said.

Israeli forces rarely prosecute settlers for violence against Palestinians and their property, which is routine in the occupied West Bank.

_________

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies Report

Monday evening, May 13 2013; a group of extremist Israeli settlers set ablaze Palestinian olive orchards and farmlands that belong the villages of Qaryout, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.


Settlers Burn Palestinian Agricultural Lands Near Nablus
author Tuesday May 14, 2013 04:22author by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies Report post

Monday evening, May 13 2013; a group of extremist Israeli settlers set ablaze Palestinian olive orchards and farmlands that belong the villages of Qaryout, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

File - Maan Images
File - Maan Images

Local sources reported that the armed settlers burnt the agricultural lands, and prevented the villagers from reaching their lands to put the fire off.

Bashar Qaryouty, coordinator of the Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements in Qaryout village, reported that the burnt lands were planted with wheat and olive trees.

Qaryouty added that the size of the torched lands is approximately 25 Dunams (6.17 Acres), and added that the Israeli army eventually called for an Israeli fire truck as the fires approached the Shiloh illegal settlement, built on the villagers’ lands.