‘Israeli’ Forces Raze Agricultural Land East of Al-Khalil

By Staff, Agencies

‘Israeli’ occupation forces razed a large tract of agriculture land in Birin village, south of the southern occupied West Bank city of al-Khalil.

Head of Birin Village Council, Farid Burqan, said the Zionist military’s bulldozers leveled 10 dunams of agricultural land planted with 400 grape and olive saplings as well as summer crops.

The occupation forces also tore down retaining walls and sabotaged barbed wire belonging to Salem al-Rajabi under the flimsy pretext that his plot of land is located in so-called ‘Area C’, which accounts for 60 percent of the total West Bank area.

Located to the southwest of Bani Naim, Birin has a population of 160 and is flanked by Bani Haiver colonial settlement from the east and the settler-only bypass Road No. 60 from the west. Its residents were originally expelled from Naqab in southern occupied territories and now depend on agriculture and livestock as their main source of livelihood.

According to the Land Research Center, the Zionist entity has frequently issued military stop-construction and demolition orders against various residential and agricultural structures and dismantled barns in the locality, citing the lack of rarely-issued construction permits as a pretext.