Burin and Duma: the settlers take over the Palestinian olive harvest

Place:

Burin (Yitzhar)

Duma

Tags:

Deportation

Expropriation

Olive Harvest

Settlers, Settlements

Swords of Iron War

Observers:

Fathiya - phone report from Duma, Irit - phone report from Burin

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Oct-21-2023

Morning

Phone reports from Burin and Duma

Fathiya A.

I spoke with the Duma council chief.

Colonists and soldiers harass the people living south-east of the village, and have taken over their lands and springs like the Al Rashash and Fasail springs.

Douma villagers packing their belongings and loading trucks.

The colonists have also threatened farmers and chased them off their land during the olive harvest season, and burnt their vehicles.

Irit Segoli

I spoke with Doha yesterday – she was hoping to harvest olives assuming that on Saturday the colonists would not arrive bearing arms. However, today they did come accompanied by the army and sheets to collect the olives, Doha’s olives which they harvested. She could not even come near. Having mobilized three others to help her, it was all in vain.

So many violations all at once – desecrating the Sabbath, stealing…

Burin: a settler comes Saturday to pick olives in Doha grove

Photo:

Local resident

Duma: settlers, under the auspices of the army, expel the Palestinian harvesting their olives

Photo:

Local resident

Location Description

Burin (Yitzhar)

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Burin

This is a Palestinian village in the Nablus governorate, a little south of Nablus, on the main road passing through the West Bank. The settlements: Yitzhar and Har Bracha, settled in locations that surrounded the village, placed fences so it is cut off the main road.

There are around 4000 inhabitants. Most of them are engaged in agriculture and pasture, although many graduates of the two secondary schools continue to study at the university. Academic positions are hardly available, they find work as builderd, or leave for the Gulf countries.

The village lands were appropriated several times for the establishment of Israeli settlements and military bases, and as a result, Burin's land and water resources dwindled. lSince 1982, more than 2,000 dunams of village land have been declared "state land" and then transferred to Har Bracha settlement.

Over the past few years and more so since 2017, the villagers have been terrorized by the residents of Yitzhar and Har Bracha, the Givat Ronen outpost and others.
Despite the close proximity of soldiers to an IDF base close to one of the village's schools, residents are suffering from numerous stone-throwing events, vehicle and fire arson, also reported in the press.

In 2023, the prevention of the olive harvest in the village plot was more violent than ever. Soldiers and settlers walked with drawn weapons between the houses of the village and demanded that people stop harvesting in the village itself and in the private plots outside the village. The settlers from Yitzhar and Giv'at Roned raided the olive groves and stole crops. 300 olive trees belonging to the residents of Burin, near Yitzhar, were uprooted. The loss of livelihood from the olives causes long-term economic damage to the farmers' families, bringing them to the point of starvation.

(updated for November 2023)

Duma

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A village in the Nablus governorate, with 3,000 residents. They owned some 18,000 dunams, 500 dunams of which the village itself was built. However, after the settlement of Migdaleim annexed a large part of their land, their area was reduced to only 2,000 dunams.

On July 31, 2015, two houses in the town were torched with petrol bombs. Sa'ad and Riham Dawabsha, and their infant, Ali Sa'ad Dawabsha, were burned to death. Another son was seriously injured. "Revenge" and "King Messiah" were spray painted on the walls of the house. The trial of the arsonist, the settler Amiram Ben Uliel, is still underway (2019), and a plea bargain was signed in May 2018 with the minor who participated in the planning of the arson.

The closure info-icon imposed by the army, the poor roads that they are forced use due to the lack of paving permits from the Civil Administration, along with the lack of public transportation, all these difficulties cut off the village from nearby Nablus and Ramallah.