A’dnan A’aqal, 67, married and the father of seven, Qusrah I’m a farmer, I live in Qusrah. I own 4.5 dunams of farmland. The land is 1.5 km north of Qusrah and borders the settlement Migdalim. There are about 100 olive trees on my land, 5-20 years old. In 1997, settlers tried to cut down the trees on my plot. I filed a complaint that stopped them.
After the second intifada broke out, the settlement expanded its territory and also its special security zone and they took about 400 square meters away from me. Six months ago, the army and the settlers set up two mobile homes on those 400 square meters that were taken from me.
Before the mobile homes were set up, we used to have free access to farm this area. We had no contact with the settlers. During this recent farming season, the settlement civilian security coordinator arrived with soldiers and informed us that we are only allowed to harvest until 6 pm every day.
On Tuesday October 13, 2015 we went to our land to harvest our olives and discovered seven trees had dried up because they were poisoned. These trees were on the line where the settlers put up the fence for their mobile home neighborhood. The fence is now on my land, in addition to the two mobile homes which are on my land.
I went to the village council to complain. They told me that a lawyer was handling the case. I don’t know what we’ll do.
My estimate is that each tree would have produced about ten kgs of oil. In addition to the financial damage, I’m scared that the settlement will expand further on my land, or they will create an area separating us from the houses. On October 28, 2015 I filed a complaint at the Nablus DCO regarding the poisoning, trespassing and the mobile homes. I complained in order to prevent similar actions in the future.