Olive trees cut down in second attack on Palestinian village in as many days
On Friday, two vehicles were damaged in same village — Urif, in the northern West Bank
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on GoogleJacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Fifteen olive trees were found chopped down Saturday in Urif, in what was the second apparent hate crime attack against residents of the northern West Bank village in as many days and the third in less than two weeks.
Saturday’s attack came less than 24 hours after two vehicles parked outside the town were found with their tires slashed and Hebrew hate slogans graffitied on them.
Among the slogans uncovered at the scene were “Fight the enemy” and “Price tag,” the latter a term used by perpetrators to describe the attacks, which they say are in retaliation for Palestinian violence or government policies perceived as hostile to the settler movement.
Palestinian olive groves and mosques and churches inside Israel have also been targeted by far-right vandals in recent years, as have dovish Israeli rights groups and even IDF military bases.
On April 18, vandals cut down more than two dozen olive trees in Urif and spray-paint walls throughout the village with the phrase “Death to Arabs” in an apparent hate attack.
The incidents in Urif brought the total of such attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank and Israeli Arabs this month to 13, including similar hate crimes that took place in Deir Ammar, Jalud, Ramun, Beit Iksa, Burqa, Burin, As-Sawiya and Luban a-Sharqiya, Aqraba, and Fara’ata.
Attacks have included the chopping down of dozens of olive trees, the torching of a moque, the hurling of stones thrown through car windows and graffiti calling for the murder of Arabs.
Israeli settlers also suffered property damage on Wednesday in an attack that they blamed on Palestinians. Police said they had opened an investigation after some 150 grapevines in a vineyard belonging to a resident of the Jordan Valley settlement of Tomer were chopped down overnight.
On Sunday, the Shin Bet security service released statistics showing far-right hate crimes against Palestinians have increased significantly since the beginning of 2018.
A defense official told The Times of Israel that the security establishment views the northern West Bank settlement of Yitzhar as primarily responsible for the recent uptick in such incidents.
The town of roughly 1,500 residents has become a “refuge for hilltop youth” who have been involved in most of the so-called price tag attacks in the past year, the official said. The young activists are often referred to as such due to their practice of setting up illegal outposts on West Bank hilltops.
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