Settlers attack olive harvest near Nablus

Settlers attacked a group of Palestinians and international volunteers harvesting olives in the Nablus village of Burin, a Palestinian Authority official said. Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activity in the Northern West Bank, told Ma'an on Sunday that settlers from the notorious Yizhar settlement raided the neighboring Palestinian village of Burin and attacked the group with iron rods. Nemr Issa al-Tirawi, 29, and his brother Qusai, 27, were lightly injured in the attack together with two international volunteers from the Israeli rights group Yesh Din. According to a 2012 report on Israeli settler violence released by the Palestine Center, a Washington-based nonprofit organization, every year the olive harvest period sees the highest peak in attacks on Palestinian civilians and property. In 2012, there were 353 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Over 7,500 olive trees were damaged or destroyed by settlers between January and mid-October in 2012, according to OCHA.