IOF launches arrest sweep, burns down farmland in Jenin vicinity

[ 17/08/2011 - 02:02 PM ]

JENIN, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces launched wide-ranging arrest sweeps around the West Bank city of Jenin, and burned dozens of dunams of farmland west of the city. Witnesses said several patrols raided Kafr Rai village south of Jenin and deployed throughout the streets. The home of 16-year-old Bilal Nabil Jawabira, 16, was searched in the operation. The sources added the soldiers set up ambushes in the local cemetery, in the olive groves, and on the rooftops of nearby homes. IOF troops raided several other villages in the area with patrols that went on until early morning without report of arrest. Meanwhile, IOF soldiers set fire to dozens of dunums (1 Dunum= 1000 square meters) of olive groves and almond fields causing heavy damage in the village of East Barta’a in the southern region of Jenin governorate. Locals said troops posted at the Barta’a checkpoint stopped fire vehicles from Jenin’s civil defense service from arriving to fight the blaze. They said Israel forces had been burning grass piled on the sides of the roads where they were patrolling, when fire spread to nearby olive groves. Meantime, locals reported that a gang of Jewish settlers burned down tens of dunams of farmland in the dismantled Jewish settlement of Homesh and directed verbal insults at Arabs and tried to assault the vehicles of Palestinians who drove along the road between Jenin and Nablus. Witnesses said the settlers set fire to hundreds of olive and almond trees as Israeli military forces remained idle. IOF troops arrived to the region for the protection of the settlers, they said.

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