https://arab.news/nzxqc
While the eyes of the world are on the horrific scenes of killing and devastation in Gaza, Israel is ratcheting up its control over the West Bank, again using the pretext of security, while appearing to move toward annexation. There are many ugly faces to the brutality of more than 58 years of Israeli occupation, including the destruction of the landscape through the building of settlements. These are expanded by expropriating land from the local Palestinian population, erecting separation walls and, most symbolically, uprooting vegetation, especially olive trees.
Late last month the Israeli security forces uprooted 3,100 trees in the West Bank village of Al-Mughayyir, northeast of Ramallah, after a civilian was shot and wounded a week earlier near the unauthorized Israeli outpost of Adei Ad. Thousands of olive and almond trees, many decades old, were bulldozed and disappeared from the landscape of the West Bank. At the scene of the shooting, the Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth said that all West Bank villages should “know that if they commit a terror attack, they will pay a heavy price, and they will experience a curfew and siege.” This smacks more of collective punishment than legitimate security measures.
