NABLUS, Wednesday, October 07, 2020 (WAFA) – Three Palestinians were today injured after Israeli settlers assaulted olive harvesters in the groves of Huwara town, south of Nablus, according to a local source.

Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activities in the northern West Bank, told WAFA that a number of settlers attacked Palestinian farmers as they were picking their olive trees, inflicting injuries and bruises on three of them.

He added that this was the third settler attack against Palestinian olive harvesters in the last 24 hours in Nablus.

The settlers came from Yitzhar, a colonial settlement notorious for its hardcore religious community.

With more than 12 million olive trees planted across 45% of the West Bank’s agricultural land, the olive harvest constitutes one of the biggest sources of economic sustainability for thousands of Palestinian families.

According to UN OCHA, the olive oil industry supports the livelihoods of more than 100,000 families and accounts for a quarter of the gross agricultural income of the occupied territories.

But, as local NGO MIFTAH notes, “olive trees carry more than an economic significance in the lives of Palestinians. They are not just like any other trees, they are symbolic of Palestinians’ attachment to their land.”

“Because the trees are drought-resistant and grow under poor soil conditions, they represent Palestinian resistance and resilience. The fact that olive trees live and bear fruit for thousands of years is parallel to Palestinian history and continuity on the land.”

K.T/ K.F.