The Israeli military has destroyed about 3,000 olive trees in a village near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the head of the local council says, as Palestinians face a continued wave of violence across the territory in the shadow of Israel’s war on Gaza.
The Israeli military issued an order on Saturday to uproot olive trees in a 0.27sq-km (0.1sq-mile) area in al-Mughayyir, a village of about 4,000 residents northeast of Ramallah.
The army justified the measure by saying the trees posed a “security threat” to a main Israeli settlement road that runs through the village’s lands.
The destruction was carried out as al-Mughayyir has been under lockdown since Thursday after an Israeli settler said he was shot at in the area.
The deputy head of the village council, Marzouq Abu Naim, told Palestinian news agency Wafa that Israeli soldiers had stormed more than 30 homes since dawn on Saturday, destroying residents’ property and vehicles.
For decades, the Israeli military has uprooted olive trees – an important Palestinian cultural symbol – across the occupied Palestinian territory as part of the country’s efforts to seize Palestinian land and forcibly displace residents.
The West Bank also has seen a surge in Israeli military and settler violence since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023, and tens of thousands of Palestinians have been forced out of their homes.
Palestinian men collect wheat after an attack by Israeli settlers in al-Mughayyir in May [File: Mohammed Torokman/Reuters]
More than 2,370 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians have been reported across the area from January 2024 to the end of July this year, according to the latest figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The highest number of attacks – 585 – was recorded in the Ramallah area, followed by 479 in the Nablus region in the northern West Bank.
At least 671 Palestinians, including 129 children, also have been killed by Israeli forces and Israeli settlers across the West Bank in that same time period, OCHA said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Saturday on the uprooting of the olive trees in al-Mughayyir.
Hamza Zubeidat, a Palestinian researcher, said the destruction is part of Israel’s “continuous” effort to force Palestinians off their lands.
“We have to be clear that since 1967, Israel is still implementing the same plan of evicting the Palestinian population from the countryside and the cities of the West Bank. What’s going on right now is just a continuous process of this eviction of Palestinians. It’s not a new Israeli process,” Zubeidat told Al Jazeera.
He noted that al-Mughayyir has a long agricultural history and, like other villages in the West Bank, relies almost entirely on agriculture and livestock as its main source of income.
“This area where more than 3,000 olive trees [were] uprooted is one of the most fertile areas in this part of the Ramallah area,” Zubeidat explained.
“Uprooting trees, confiscated water springs, blocking and preventing Palestinians from accessing their farms and water sources means more food and water insecurity.”
