This morning Ibrihim Abu Jindeeya, a Palestinian shepherd and farmer in the
Yatta area, came to the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) apartment in Hebron
to report that settlers from the Jewish settlement of Ma'on burned his entire
wheat crop last night, during the Jewish sabbath. He lost 150 dunams (37.5
acres) of wheat, some still standing, and some which had already been cut and
gathered into large piles.

Farmers in the area, located southeast of Hebron, have told CPTers of
persistent harassment by settlers from Ma'on and
nearby Karmel. The incidents have included burning fields, killing livestock,
and threatening shepherds with guns. Team members have previously observed
burned fields in the area.

Because Jindeeya's land, in the valley directly below the Ma'on settlement,
was considered particularly vulnerable, members of CPT and participants in a
CPT-sponsored delegation assisted in gathering several dunams of his wheat on
June 6. At that time, CPT documented the condition of the fields with
photographs, and Jindeeya asked for those pictures today as he went to file
reports with the International Red Cross and the Israeli civilian police.

On June 15, Abdel Hadi Hantash of the Palestinian Land Defense
Committee told CPT that Israeli soldiers and settlers from Ma'on had
confronted Jindeeya the previous day, preventing him from bringing in his
crop. On June 20, members of the CPT team visited the Jindeeya family with a
group of U.S. college students to accompany the family as they worked in the
fields. Jindeeya explained at that time that the harvest had been delayed by
unfavorable weather conditions and by incidents with settlers.