RAMALLAH, Tuesday, October 13, 2020 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers today attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting their olive crops in the village of Burqa, east of Ramallah, injuring two, according to Walid Assaf, head of the Wall and Settlements Resistance Commission.

He told WAFA that after farmers, supported by dozens of volunteers, were able to reach their lands in Burqa, which they have been denied access to for years by the Israeli occupation army, and started to harvest their olive trees settlers descended on them and attacked them.

He said the settlers, from the illegal Megron settlement, were protected by the soldiers when they attacked the farmers in an attempt to get them to leave their land and injured two of them.

Assaf said the volunteers and farmers confronted the settlers and were able to fend them off.

Rights organizations have documented a sharp rise in Israeli settlers' attacks against Palestinian farmers harvesting their olive trees or stealing their crops and of soldiers banning farmers from reaching their land in areas close to the illegal settlements or located beyond Israel's apartheid barrier.

M.K.