WEST BANK, (PIC)
Extremist Jewish settler groups demolished dozens of Palestinian agricultural structures, stole sheep, and damaged crops in different areas of the West Bank on Sunday.
According to local sources, settlers with a bulldozer stormed the Arab al-Khouli community east of Kafr Thulth town in southern Qalqilya and demolished 50 agricultural rooms belonging to the al-Khouli and Moqbel families. These structures, built of stone, steel, and tin sheets, had been set up on about 30 dunums of farmland.
Mayor Jihad Odeh said the bulldozed land is part of 1,700 dunums of olive and wheat fields, with damages worth millions of shekels.
Repeated settler attacks forced Arab al-Khouli families to flee to the town of Kafr Thulth, yet they return daily to farm or take care of their lands.
For his part, agricultural official Bashar Shawahna said that local residents had rallied on the area’s fertile lands for over 80 years as their main source of farming and livestock.
He noted that relentless settler violence also emptied much of the community, reducing its residents to just 10 families from the 25 who once lived there since 1948.
In eastern Ramallah, a horde of settlers stole about 80 sheep from a Palestinian-owned farm in the village of Kafr Malik.
Mustafa Rabie, the farm owner, said settlers infiltrated his barn during the night and stole 80 sheep, herding them towards a nearby settlement outpost.
Rabie noted that settlers had previously stolen 100 sheep from his farm last August, with none recovered.
“These losses are immense and unbearable. This was our source of livelihood, and nobody compensates us,” he said.
In the northern Jordan Valley, local sources reported that settlers released their livestock into cultivated fields in the al-Hamma area, resulting in extensive damage to rain-fed crops and lands.
