ARMABA, Occupied West Bank \u2013 The peaceful atmosphere of early September was shattered by the roar of bulldozers and the sound of ancient olive trees being uprooted along the Arraba-Ya\u2019bad road. For kilometers, fields of olive groves were razed, structures reduced to twisted metal, and Israeli flags planted prominently, marking a rapid escalation in the campaign of dispossession in one of the region’s most fertile agricultural areas.<\/p>\n
Kamal al-Uraidi witnessed the destruction firsthand as he drove past the al-Fari family\u2019s land, where soldiers prevented two women from approaching the machines that were completing the demolition of their olive grove. The family reported that their phones were confiscated during the operation, preventing them from documenting the event, and their identification documents were seized and photographed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a settlement plan \u2013 settlers over there, confiscations here, uprooting trees, Judaisation of the land, expelling people from this land \u2013 they want to drive people out,\u201d al-Uraidi said. \u201cSoon, there will be nothing left.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ahmed Arda, the mayor of Arraba, described the area as being under a \u201cstate of siege.\u201d Backed by Israeli soldiers, settlers have intensified attacks on Palestinian homes, businesses, and farmland since the war in Gaza began in October 2023. Arda noted that his town is now hemmed in by the Mevo Dotan settlement to the west, the newly established Emek Dotan settlement to the north, and several new settler outposts to the south.<\/p>\n
While the Arraba military camp and four nearby settlements were evacuated in 2005 as part of Israel\u2019s disengagement plan, leaving the area relatively free of settler infrastructure for two decades, the situation has deteriorated sharply since March. In May, the Israeli military announced the reoccupation of the Arraba military camp, followed by moves to establish Emek Dotan on 220 dunums (approximately 0.2 square kilometers) of Arraba\u2019s land. The new settlement was formally inaugurated on August 9 with the attendance of Israeli ministers.<\/p>\n
Arda recounted being awakened in the middle of the night by Israeli security forces, who demanded he suppress what they termed \u201cincitement\u201d by instructing local mosque imams to stop posting updates on social media. Arda refused, stating, \u201cWe are people living on our land, living in our country \u2013 we want to live in peace… You are the ones who came at us and this land is ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Arraba Plain, comprising 33,000 dunums of arable land, is the most agriculturally productive area in the northern West Bank and the primary source of olive oil for the Jenin governorate. However, Israeli authorities have recently issued notices ordering the removal of vegetation along a roughly seven-kilometer stretch, raising fears of further clearance. Separately, a cluster of military orders covering more than 300 dunams was issued this summer.<\/p>\n
According to Ahmed al-Uraidi, roughly 250 olive trees belonging to his family were uprooted this week on land classified as Area A, which is technically under Palestinian Authority control. Residents report that armed settlers have begun destroying crops at night and grazing animals on village land. Naim al-Sha\u2019er lost 400 fig trees after settlers cut through his iron fence on September 1.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not near the road, it\u2019s not bothering any settler \u2013 nothing,\u201d al-Sha\u2019er said. \u201cEvery day \u2026 you check on [your trees], you feel good watching it grow, little by little. Like your own son. And then, [without warning], they kill it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mayor Arda stated that 220 dunams have been confiscated for Emek Dotan, with an additional 223 dunams bulldozed in recent operations. Furthermore, 2,800 dunams of farmland have been rendered inaccessible due to settler attacks or closed military zone orders. Of the approximately 70 percent of Arraba\u2019s 13,000 residents who depend on farming, all agricultural activity is now under threat.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey want to turn most of the Palestinian people into refugees, living in camps,\u201d Arda said. \u201cThis is what their Zionist idea is trying to achieve \u2013 that nothing is left to tie us to the land, so that we start thinking about emigration and leaving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dror Etkes, co-founder of the Israeli watchdog Kerem Navot, described the current campaign as an \u201cincreasingly brazen application of a model used elsewhere.\u201d He highlighted that the strategy now extends into Area A, with new military outposts and roads designed to bisect the northern West Bank. Etkes called the construction of a settler road connecting Mevo Dotan to settlements east of Jenin \u201cabsolutely the most extreme measure which the Israeli authorities have taken until today,\u201d arguing it fundamentally violates the Oslo Accords.<\/p>\n
For families like the al-Faris, the loss is personal and generational. Khalil al-Fari watched as all 150 of his family\u2019s trees were destroyed, along with 300 of his neighbor\u2019s. His nephew, Ahmed al-Fari, recalled growing up among trees that were over 80 years old, noting that the bulldozer operator seemed ashamed.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, the tree was lying on the ground and we were just watching,\u201d Ahmed said. \u201cMy grandmother used to pick from these trees. I remember how she\u2019d move through them… Even the branches we used to hang the swings on, we still remember them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera contacted Israeli authorities and the military for comment but had not received a response at the time of publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Israeli forces and settlers are systematically dismantling olive groves and farms in the Arraba plain, threatening the livelihoods of Palestinian communities in the northern West Bank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[136,17,33,1437,2122,214,10],"class_list":["post-977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","tag-agriculture","tag-israel","tag-middle-east","tag-palestinians","tag-settlements","tag-west-bank","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yovao.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}