My family owns 71 dunams of land. Of this land, eight dunams have around sixty olive trees, and the rest is grazing land. The land is on the western side – the allegedly “Israeli” side of the separation wall, which surrounds Hizma from the north. The wall was built in 2004-2006. Since it was built, we can barely get to our land. The Israeli army only allows us to go there once a year during the olive harvest.
There were two prior incidents there. My house overlooks (over the separation wall) my land and the plots just by it, so that I can always see what is happening there [but not go there].
About two years ago, around August 2009, my land was torched apparently by settlers from Neve Yaakov. Six roman olive trees were completely burned, they are very special trees. I didn’t file a police complaint at the time. On May 3, 2011, there was a fire on land owned by the A family, by my land. At 6 pm I was at home. I saw a fire burning on the groves by my land and noticed several people, probably Israeli fire fighters who came to put out the fire. I remember that at a certain point I saw the fire about to spread to my grove, and two of my olive trees were nearly burned. In the end, the fire fighters put out the fire.
Last Friday, June 3, 2001 at 4 pm I was home and saw a fire spreading to my land. The fire began on pastureland and then spread to the olive grove. I want to note that before the fire began, I saw seven people walking around my plot. The distance between my house and the olive groves is about one km as the crow flies. I think that the seven people were from the settlement Neve Yaakov, because that is the place nearest to our land, and nobody is allowed there except settlers from Neve Yaakov.
I saw those seven people observing the fire spreading, while they stood and didn’t do doing anything about it. Only at around 7 pm, close to sunset fire fighters arrived and put out the fire. I think someone from the village called the local council, who called the Palestinian DCO, who called the Israeli DCO and then the fire fighters. I could see for certain that my six olive trees were completely burned.