Violation: Burning 32 dunams of wheat crops.

Location: Al Mas'udiya area, west Burqa village, Nablus governorate.

Date: May, 10^th 2025.

Perpetrators: Settlers.

Affected party: Two farmers, Mousa Mohammad Zayed Da’is and Khaled Talal Saif.

Details:

Al Mas'udiya area located west Burqa village, Nablus governorate, specifically within Natural block no.19 witnessed an attack by settlers from pastoral outpost in ‘Ras Qabos’ that located on Sabastiya lands.

A group of settlers raided a field planted with wheat crops with total area of 32 dunams, and 300 meters away from mentioned outpost, as set fire in the field in several different locations, causing to a widespread blaze. The high temperature and the winds contributed to the spread of the fire, leading to a complete burning for entire land in a short period of time.

The affected land belongs to two farmers, Mousa Mohammad Zayed Da’is, and Khaled Talal Saif.

The affected farmer Mousa Da’is told as follows:

‘’ Agriculture is a main and only source of income to my family, specifically after October 7^th 2023 events, I plant the land with wheat annually to selling it to secure the livelihood, I used to harvest wheat on another piece pf land I own, which is about 800 meters away from the location of the fire. I saw four settlers coming from the settlement in Ras Qaboos, about 300 meters of lands were burned, they were armed and I couldn’t reach to them as I saw them set fire in five different locations. The flames quickly spread and destroyed the entire crop. Normally, the land produces about 330 kg of wheat per dunam, but it was completely burned. I rushed with my tractor to site and plowed the ground around the fire areas as a precautionary measure to prevent the flames from spreading to neighboring lands and house. We were able to control the fire but the damage was enormous.

It is worth noting that Burqa village specifically Al Mas'udiya area witnessed colonial extended as the settlers take control on all over the area lands and bulldoze a colonial road to extends colonial areas, all these practices to shrunk the Palestinian existence.

The field researcher documented a large number such these practices in Al Al Mas'udiya over past five years.

About Burqa:

12 km north Nablus city, Burqa is surrounded by the Israeli illegal colony “Homesh” (north), Ramin and Al-Masa’adeyeh villages (west) , Beit Amrin (east) and Sabastiya (south).

Burqa has a population of (4152) people in 2017.

Burqa has a total space of 18174 dunums, 506 of them are the town’s built-up area.

The Israeli occupation confiscated (1047) dunums from Burqa’s lands to establish “Homesh” settlement in 1980, the Israeli government claim that “Homesh” is evicted but that is not the truth, the settlement is inhabited by radical settlers who implemented several attacks against villagers of Burqa.

Oslo conventions divided Burqa into:

• A area: (4796) dunums.
• B area: (5131) dunums.
• C area: (8247) dunums.

مشروع: حماية الحقوق البيئية الفلسطينية في مناطق "ج" SPERAC IV - GFFO

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of Land Research Center and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of the project donor; the Norwegian Refugee Council.

إخلاء المسؤولية: الآراء ووجهات النظر الواردة في هذا التقرير هي آراء ووجهات نظر مركز أبحاث الأراضي ولا تعكس بالضرورة وجهات نظر أو مواقف الجهة المانحة للمشروع؛ المجلس النرويجي. للاجئين