2023-11-12 19:01:00
Strapped into his protective shell, Rabbi Arik Ascherman stands guard in an olive grove in the occupied West Bank. At his level, this activist protects Palestinian farmers from the wave of violence targeting them since the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
“There is no excuse, no explanation, no justification for what Hamas did” on October 7, says this 64-year-old rabbi while behind him farmers drop olives into a tarpaulin at the foot of centuries-old trees. .
That day, the Palestinian Islamist movement killed 1,200 people in Israel, kidnapped more than 240 others and sparked a war that has already left more than 11,000 dead in Gaza, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
After that, “the average Israeli is neither ready nor willing to distinguish between terrorist Palestinians and terrorized Palestinians,” Mr. Ascherman, co-founder of the NGO Rabbis for Human Rights, told AFP. the man.
Settlers and soldiers
And to quote the Old Testament: “Are you really going to destroy the righteous with the guilty??”.
“I’ve been doing this for 28 years, I’ve never been so marginalized,” he says, his chest puffed out by the protective shell he wears under his shirt.
Every year, in the fall, in the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied for 56 years by Israel, settlers burn or uproot trees, Israeli soldiers block access to olive groves or a colony settles on land.
But this season is special. It coincides with the war in Gaza and an intensification of clashes in the West Bank, already more than 180 Palestinians killed in the small territory since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Israeli soldiers are increasing their incursions into the heart of cities; settler attacks have increased from three to seven per day, according to the UN.
At the end of October, they killed a farmer who was tending his olive trees, reports the Israeli human rights NGO B’Tselem.
Since October 7, B’Tselem adds, “there has been an increase in incidents involving violent settlers attacking Palestinians dressed in military uniforms and in possession of state-issued weapons.”
For the UN, in almost half of the cases of violence carried out by settlers, “Israeli security forces accompanied or actively supported them”.
The Israeli army assures that in the case of the farmer killed in his olive grove, “it appears that an off-duty soldier participated.” She claimed to have opened an investigation.
“Twice as afraid”
“Since October 7, we have been twice as afraid of the settlers,” says Samir Abdelkarim, 63, who also owns olive trees a few kilometers further away.
In his village of Doura al-Qarea, “we have not been able to access our trees,” he says, “because the settlers and the Israeli army are shooting at us.”
“From our point of view, it looks like the settlers are trying to open a new front,” Dani Brodsky, director of Rabbis for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, told AFP, padded gloves on his hands at the case where settlers would come to strike.
“It is hard to lose this harvest season, but we pray for peace and we are ready to work for it,” he adds.
That day, for several hours, the AFP did not see any settlers. The Palestinian farmers all refused to be named or filmed for fear of reprisals from surrounding settlements.
Before, in the small territory which has around 10 million olive trees, “the olive harvest season was a real festival, but that is no longer the case today”, laments Souad Mahmoud, from Doura al-Qarea .
“Olives are very important to us, we couldn’t live according to them.”
12/11/2023 17:59:41 – Taybeh (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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