Alwan said the measures have greatly increased costs for farmers.
“The crop barely covers a small part of the costs of ploughing, planting, harvesting and threshing, but we are here because this is no longer about profit and loss. It is about steadfastness and holding on to the land,” he said.
“Farmers will not leave their land despite the attacks. They will continue to work on it and remain on it,” he added.
Farmer Mustafa Shabaneh said he came with several residents of the town to move the wheat from the fields out of fear that it would be stolen or burned.
“I own seven dunums planted with wheat, and occupiers tried more than once to burn the crop. One time, they set fire to the area, but young men from the town intervened and managed to drive them away,” he said.
“We kept watching the area out of fear that occupiers would reach the crop, but they returned at night and brought a bulldozer and opened a road to reach the farmland. So we decided to move the wheat from here as quickly as possible so it would not be stolen or destroyed,” he added.
More than harvest at stake
In a nearby field, farmer Ali Bashir watched as the crop was collected amid anxiety.
“Farmers are no longer able to work normally in this area. Even shepherds are afraid to reach the grazing areas because of occupier attacks,” he said.
“If occupiers come, they may attack you, steal your sheep or prevent you from reaching your land. People here fear for their crops because there have been previous cases of crops being burned and farmers targeted,” he added.
“We are supposed to thresh the wheat here on the land, but we are moving it quickly because of fear. This process costs us extra money for transport, harvesting and threshing, but we are forced to do it to preserve the crop,” Bashir said.
“What is happening is not just targeting the wheat crop, but an attempt to push Palestinians to leave their land and seize it. That is why farmers insist on staying and working on it despite all the difficulties,” he added.
On June 10, Amnesty International accused Israel of leading and sponsoring a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, saying the arming of thousands of illegal settlers has contributed to the escalation of such attacks.
“It is implementing the settler movement’s religious nationalist agenda. It has accelerated settlement expansion and land grabs, increased financial and logistical support to settlements, and it has armed settlers, thereby enabling a brutal state-sanctioned campaign of settler violence and of forced displacement of Palestinians,” the organisation said.
Various areas of the occupied West Bank have seen a sharp escalation in illegal Israeli settler attacks, coinciding with ongoing Israeli attacks since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023.
Since then, Israel’s raids in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have killed more than 1,170 Palestinians, wounded about 12,666 others, led to the arrest of about 23,000 people and displaced around 33,000.
