Update during Corona: Burin: The village under daily settler and military attacks
Yesterday, Monday March 16, D. and M. sent me photos of homes under clouds of grenade smoke, Jewish settler-colonists planting trees, throwing stones, and Israeli soldiers hanging out throughout Bourin village, and finally an ambulance.
This morning I received more detailed information. According to them: yesterday, Monuday, March 16, 2020, at 3:30 p.m. settler-colonists around the settler-colonist outpost of Giv’at Ronen (east of Bourin village) planted saplings in land belonging to Bourin villagers. Children of the village approached the planters, the army believed they were throwing stones and began to fire teargas at the homes. Numerous homes in the eastern part of the village were targeted.
More army forces arrived and entered the village. The villagers began to throw stones at them. The soldiers retaliated with teargas and stun grenades, and rubber-coated ammunition.
Three youngsters were wounded by this ammunition and were rushed to hospital by ambulance. M. is not aware of their condition so far. He claims this kind of thing happens nearly every day.
Apparently these days we should contact Palestinians whom we know from villages, checkpoints, nurseries etc. to get a picture of what is happening on the ground when all of us, both they and us, are under lockdown.
Burin (Yitzhar)
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Burin (Yitzhar)
This is a Palestinian village in the Nablus governorate, a little south of Nablus, on the main road passing through the West Bank. The settlements: Yitzhar and Har Bracha, settled in locations that surrounded the village, placed fences so it is cut off the main road.
There are around 4000 inhabitants. Most of them are engaged in agriculture and pasture, although many graduates of the two secondary schools continue to study at the university. Academic positions are hardly available, they find work as builderd, or leave for the Gulf countries.
The village lands were appropriated several times for the establishment of Israeli settlements and military bases, and as a result, Burin's land and water resources dwindled. lSince 1982, more than 2,000 dunams of village land have been declared "state land" and then transferred to Har Bracha settlement.
Over the past few years and more so since 2017, the villagers have been terrorized by the residents of Yitzhar and Har Bracha, the Givat Ronen outpost and others. Despite the close proximity of soldiers to an IDF base close to one of the village's schools, residents are suffering from numerous stone-throwing events, vehicle and fire arson, also reported in the press.
In 2023, the prevention of the olive harvest in the village plot was more violent than ever. Soldiers and settlers walked with drawn weapons between the houses of the village and demanded that people stop harvesting in the village itself and in the private plots outside the village. The settlers from Yitzhar and Giv'at Roned raided the olive groves and stole crops. 300 olive trees belonging to the residents of Burin, near Yitzhar, were uprooted. The loss of livelihood from the olives causes long-term economic damage to the farmers' families, bringing them to the point of starvation.
(updated for November 2023)
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