Mohammed Mar'i Saudi Gazette RAMALLAH — Extremist Jewish settlers Thursday cut down some 1,150 olive trees near the West Bank city of Nablus, a Palestinian official said. Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority official monitoring settler activity in the northern West Bank, said that settlers from the Itamar settlement arrived at the Awarta village, to the east of Nablus, and cut down some the trees with chainsaw. He added that dozens of olive trees were from the Roman era. Daghlas said that the olive groves located behind the security fence of Itamar. He added that the trees were planted on nearly 600 dunams of Palestinian-owned lands. The official added that the trees belong to 25 Palestinian families. The official added that the Palestinian owners were allowed to enter the area after coordination between the Nablus governorate and the Israeli District Coordination Liaison Office. The Jewish settlers carried out several attacks against Awarta after Palestinian youths stabbed and murdered five members of the Fogel family in Itamar on early 2011. The Palestinian Authority harshly slammed the attack. In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, there are more than 800,000 Jewish settlers who live with some 3.5 million Palestinians. The Palestinians want the two areas as part of their independent state. Tension has been always on between the two sides that usually turn into violence. The Palestinian leadership decided to suspend the direct peace talks with Israel in October 2010, after the latter insisted on keeping building settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Since March, US Secretary of State John Kerry held several meetings with Palestinian and Israeli leaders in bid to revive the direct peace talks, thus far in vain. On Wednesday, the Israeli Transportation Minister Israel Katz of ruling Likud party said he opposes Palestinian state in West Bank. “I am opposed to a Palestinian state,” Katz said at the start of an executive meeting of the Council of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territories (Yesha). “It is unacceptable, mainly because of our rights to this land,' Katz said. “In my eyes, the right diplomatic solution is an autonomous Palestinian entity, but with Jordanian civilian and political affiliation.” Katz added that Gaza should be severed from Israel and connected to Egypt. In 2005, former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon launched a unilateral Israeli disengagement from Gaza Strip.
