June 25, 2008

Black burn spots covered vast areas of farmlands that belong to residents of Boreen and Aseera Al Qibliyya villages, south of the northern West Bank city o Nablus; hours after Israeli settlers burnt their lands and uprooted hundreds of trees.

The residents managed to enter their lands several hours after the settlers, who came from Yitzhar settlement, return to their colony after vandalizing the Palestinian lands while the Israeli army watched and listened without any intervention.

The soldiers were there, and eyewitnesses said that the army just stood there and watched the settlers burning the lands. They even bared for several hours Palestinian fire-trucks and civil defense teams from entering the area in an attempt to distinguish the fire .

After the firefighters were allowed through , they started fighting the blaze which already ate most of the lands that became a daily target for those extremist settlers.

Resident Minwir Abu Zahir, from Huwwara village near Nablus, said that this attack was carried out in broad daylight as most of the attacks by the settlers are carried at night.

Abu Zahir added that a reporter, identified as Romel Al Sweity, who lives near the area, managed to film the attack and managed to film this huge thick black cloud which caused suffocation to several residents.

Meanwhile, Nablus governor, Dr. Jamal Mheisin, and Adnan Ateera, head f the Public Affairs Committee at the governors’ office, headed to the attacked area and were attacked by the settlers who apparently did needed "a further dosage of ecstasy" by not only burning the Palestinian lands and destroying the property but also by "getting high on watching the damages and destruction they caused".