Fifty Trees Defaced, Uprooted in Suspected West Bank Hate Crime

Hagar Shezaf, Haaretz

18.09.2020

Three dozen trees were uprooted and 20 more despoiled in As-Sawiya, a Palestinian village that has been repeatedly subjected to acts of violence and vandalism

Fifty olive trees were uprooted and additional 20 vandalized Friday in a suspected hate crime in the West Bank Palestinian village of As-Sawiya, near the settlement of Ariel.

Ahmed Nasa’a, a Jaffa resident whose family is from As-Sawiya, told Haaretz that 30 trees had been uprooted from the plot his family owns. I myself fenced the plot. When the police arrived I told them to take fingerprints from the fence, which was also vandalized, but they didn’t.

Nasa’a estimated the damage in some 60,000 shekels [€14,788.1]. The police are yet to respond to a Haaretz query on whether an investigation had been launched into the matter.

Another 20 tress from other plots were severely defaced.

As-Sawiya has seen its share of vandalism in the past, but residents say they have witnessed an increase in recent months. In June, 12 vehicles were vandalized and pro-Israel graffiti spray-painted on the walls of homes in the northern West Bank village.

Security camera footage from the scene showed unidentified perpetrators puncturing car tires. Graffiti in Hebrew was also found on a wall, reading “Am Yisrael chai,” or the people of Israel live, a phrase often used as a rallying cry for Israeli nationalists.

Original article

NIS 1 = € 0.24647

al-Sawiya’s population was counted at 2,356 in 2014 (ARIJ: http://vprofile.arij.org/nablus/pdfs/vprofile/As%20Sawiya_vp_en.pdf)

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