March 16, 2011
At-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills, West Bank
Contact: Christian Peacemaker Teams: cpttuwani@...
Website: http://cpt.org/work/palestine

*Olive Trees Destroyed in West Bank village of At-Tuwani*

*Link to Photos: http://cpt.org/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=22442*

On the morning of March 16^th , residents of the Palestinian village of
At-Tuwani woke to discover that someone had destroyed six of their olive
trees in the night. The villagers said that the perpetrators were almost
certainly Israeli settlers from the nearby illegal outpost of Havat
Ma'on. “Settlers did this ... they did this because of the settlers who
were murdered near Nablus,” said Fadil Ahmed Raba'i, referring to the
recent murder of a family of five settlers inside the Israeli settlement
of Itamar, within the West Bank.

The destroyed trees were approximately 15 years old and would have
produced olives in the fall harvest had they not been damaged. They were
the property of four residents of At-Tuwani; Suleiman Jibreen Raba'i,
'Aisa Jibreen Raba'i, Mohammad Salaami Raba'i, and Musa Khalil Raba'i.

At-Tuwani has experienced frequent vandalism of olive groves since
construction of the Ma'on Settlement in 1984. Most recently, on February
21, Raba'i reported that three mature olive trees in his family's grove
had been damaged.

Since the mid 1980's Palestinians in Tuwani and the surrounding villages
have faced frequent threats and acts of violence and intimidation from
settlers, but remain committed to nonviolent resistance. Because
villagers in the region are dependent on dry-land subsistence farming,
aggression resulting in damage to trees or crops or denial of access to
agricultural lands constitutes a significant threat to the communities.

[Note: According to the Geneva Conventions, the International Court of
Justice in the Hague, and numerous United Nations resolutions, all
Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories are
illegal. Most settlement outposts are considered illegal under Israeli law.]