Palestinian family awakens to discover 100 mature grapevines destroyed On the morning of 20 September 2010, the Abdul Rahman Sharif Sultan family of
the Al Bweireh neighborhood awoke to find that Israeli settlers had cut down
six dunams (1 dunam= ¼ acre) of their mature grape vines during the night.
A member of the family told CPTers, said “I have tended
these trees since I have been very young and they have killed them…We raise
these trees like children; they grow up and then (the settlers) kill them when
they are all grown just so they can have our land.”
According to Ma’an News, the family estimated that the
immediate damage to the property reaches thousands of dollars.
Additionally, the grapes harvests from this arbor would have fed
(currently) three families with nineteen children. The grapevines would have continued to produce grapes for forty
to fifty years, if they had not been killed on 20 September.
The Sultan property lies adjacent to the settlement of Givat
Ha Harsina; settlers gained access to this field by cutting a wire fence
erected to protect these fields. Israeli police told CPT that they would
not be able to pursue the perpetrators because “no evidence” could be
linked to the perpetrators.
This incident continues a pattern of destruction of property and harassment
that settlers from Givat Ha Harsina have carried out on these villagers. Earlier
this month, settlers damaged other fields; on the weekend of 12 September,
there were several incidents of settlers throwing stones at vehicles belonging
to local residents.
