Colonists dump debris in Palestinian village

Price Tag groups of Yitzhar accused of trying to get residents to leave their farms

The Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has accused colonists of Yitzhar, in the West Bank, of dumping construction debris and other garbage in farms in the nearby Palestinian village of Burin. The PNA says crops are being killed by toxic waste.

Gassan Doghlous, the PNA official in charge of overseeing colonial activities in the northern areas of the West Bank, says the rubbish dumping has reached a point where it is causing severe hardship .

“The garbage has damaged huge agricultural land in the village,” he told Gulf News. With a Palestinian population of about 5,000, Burin — 7km southwest of Nablus — and surrounding villages have been targets of violence and vandalism by colonists of Yitzhar — known as the most fanatical and violent of Israeli colonists in the West Bank.

The so-called Price Tag groups of Yitzhar have been carrying out attacks against Palestinians as revenge for Israeli government action against the colonists, including court rulings against them and forced evacuations.

The colonists have assaulted Palestinian villagers, damaged olive trees, vandalised cars, smashed windows and cut power cables.

The Israeli occupation has confiscated more than 2,000 acres of land that were initially declared state property and then handed over to the Israeli colonists to expand Yitzhar and create the illegal colony outposts of Har Brakha and Gifat Ronim.

Doghlous says the Israeli colonists are putting massive pressure on the Palestinian villagers in the area to force them to abandon their farms and leave the district. The colonists wanted to expand their constructions and make those areas part of the Israeli colonial enterprise.

“It is crystal clear that the Israeli colonists can no longer tolerate the indigenous Palestinian residents of the area,” he said. Doghlous added that since 1982, Palestinians in the area had suffered serious agricultural losses, several villagers had been killed, and many others wounded.

Doghlous said the garbage being dumped on the Palestinian farmland appeared to include toxic waste substances, because crops were drying out and dying, resulting in losses the villagers would not be able to withstand.

He said the issue will be raised at the highest regional and international levels to get action to ensure the security of the Palestinian agricultural land in the area. Doghlous added that the garbage dumping was part of a premeditated, systematic and violent campaign against the villagers, but the offenders were going unpunished.