On the morning of June 23rd, 2010 Jewish settlers rioted and attacked Palestinian property in the neighbourhood of Saffa, Beit Ommar. On the most recent example of the so-called ‘price tag’ policy, dozens of residents of the illegal settlement of Bat Ayn attempted to set fire to private Palestinian land before throwing stones and bottles at nearby houses.

Israeli soldiers began firing tear-gas canisters and stun grenades after awoken Saffa residents had gathered around dawn, lightly injuring a number of Palestinians. Members of the Beit Ommar National Committee and Palestine Solidarity Project arrived in Saffa shortly after and recorded the incident.

The more radical of Israel’s 500,000 settlers in the … Continue reading

By Robert B.

Souad lives in the beautiful village of Saffa, next to Beit Ommar and close by the path of the Annexation Barrier. From her house in the village it is only a short walk to her land – an entire, rolling hillside, the summit of which has been stolen by the Jewish colony/settlement of Bat Eyn. No fence separates her fields and terraces from the settlement: Bat Ayn is one of only two colonies without such a fence in the entire West Bank, designed to make it easier, without a defining border, to make future land grabs.

The title deeds to Souad’s hillside have been in her family for over … Continue reading

11 Arrested, Including 2 Palestinians from PSP, in Saffa Protest Against Settlement Expansion

Saturday afternoon a group of around 50 farmers and residents of Saffa attempted to remove a stone and concrete structure erected on their land by settlers from Bat Ayn. The farmers were accompanied by members of PSP, the National Committee of Beit Ommar, Israeli activists and members of the international press.

On arrival at the structure, which was being guarded by 3 jeeps of soldiers of Israeli army, the Palestinians began to take the structure down. The soldiers forced the farmers away from the site into nearby trees where a number of the group sat down and refused to move from their land. … Continue reading

Saturday morning in a mass solidarity action organized by Palestine Solidarity Project, a group of over 30 international and Israeli activists accompanied farmers from Saffa, Beit Ommar as they together cleared rocks from fields and prepared land for planting olive trees. Israeli soldiers and Border Police arrived within the hour and declared the field a Closed Military Zone as the agricultural work constituted a threat to the security of the illegal settlement.

On the trail back to Saffa local youths attached Palestinian flags to the front of jeeps in defiance of the heavily armed soldiers.

… Continue reading

On March 11, 2010 at about 19:00 settlers from Bat Ayn set fire to trees in the valley below the neighborhood of Saffa, Bait Ommar. Members of the National Committee from Bait Ommar arrived in Saffa shortly after and attempted to record the incident. Two members were detained briefly by the Israeli Occupation Forces when they attempted to photograph the fires and were released.

Villagers tried to descend into the valley to put out the fires but were prevented from doing so and were met with tear gas from the Israeli occupation soldiers. A fire engine was also unable to deal with the fires.

Palestine Solidarity Project, along with Rabbis … Continue reading

On Saturday, February 20, several jeeps of the Israeli Military entered Saffa, near Beit Ommar, in the middle of the day. While some youth began throwing stones at the jeeps, Israeli soldiers inexplicably began throwing and shooting tear gas canisters inside the nearby homes, breaking windows in the process and punishing the people who were remaining in their homes during the incursion, particularly women and children. One small child, who had a preexisting heart condition had to be rushed to a hospital by ambulance after having severe breathing problems due to the … Continue reading

On Saturday, February 13, 2010, a group of farmers from Beit Ommar and Saffa were accompanied by members of the Beit Ommar popular committee, Palestine Solidarity Project under the new Center for Freedom and Justice of Beit Ommar, and international and Israeli solidarity activists to march into the valley below Saffa, which has been under threat of confiscation through settler violence and the Israeli military declaring the entire area a closed military zone in perpetuity.
PSP had organized a series of tree-plantings along with Israeli anti-occupation activists last month. The Israeli military attempted to prevent the tree-plantings and went so far as to announce they would … Continue reading

Either the Israeli military’s intelligence isn’t that good, or the unit(s) assigned to the Beit Ommar were just looking for a clash. This morning, Saturday, February 6, 7 military jeeps with 30 soldiers arrived in Saffa, a district of Beit Ommar that has been under intense military repression and settler violence for more than 8 months. They came, despite the fact that there was no planned action this week, as in weeks past during several tree-planting missions and follow-up visits after farmers were informed that the land was being declared Israeli “state land” and therefore the more than 800 trees planted in the area would be uprooted.

Their arrival, and closing of the only street in Saffa, provoked local … Continue reading

Update: Preliminary research done by Peace Now has revealed that the area in which farmers from Saffa planted trees (to replace what was destroyed by settlers from Bat ‘Ayn) that the Israeli military announced it would uproot last week was not registered as Israeli ’state land’ in the 1970’s as they previously claimed. They are, however, in the process of declaring it state land, a legal maneuver to confiscate the land from the Palestinians who have been using it since the before the creation of the state of Israel.

Update February 1, 2010: Farmers Prevented from Accessing Land Ahead of Uprooting

On Saturday, January 30, a group of farmers from Beit Ommar and Saffa, including those from the Thalji family whose … Continue reading

Today, January 28, at approximately 10:30am Israeli soldiers and representatives of the Civil Administration (the liason body between the Israeli military and Palestinian civilians) approached farmers from the ‘Adi and Soleiby farmers in the Saffa area of Beit Ommar and handed them a military order that stated their intention to uproot trees the farmers had planted two weeks ago as part of PSP’s massive replanting Saffa project. The order stated that the farmers had planted these trees on Israeli-owned state lands and they had 48 hours to appeal in Israeli civilian court.

Lawyers with Rabbis for Human Rights, who also supported and participated in the re-planting Saffa campaign investigated the issue and found that the Israeli government claimed it had … Continue reading