Umm Shukry inspects her olive trees one by one, just as she did every year for a decade. But this olive harvest season is different. Nearly all her trees are damaged; their branches bare and brittle.
Examining each limb, she feels exhausted with sorrow.
“I am suffocated. I am suffocated from seeing my hard work turn out like this,” she told CNN. “I used to spend so much time here under the scorching heat, taking care of them… we’ve had this land for over 50 years.”
For the past two years, the 72-year-old has been prevented from accessing her land, cut off by settler violence and Israeli army restrictions. It sits opposite an illegal outpost in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley. The Israeli settlers living there have assaulted and threatened her family, she said, forcing them to leave their land out of fear.
During their absence, settlers sent cows to graze on their olive trees, Umm Shukry’s son Shukry Shehadeh, explains.
Continue reading the complete article on the original source
