On April 26 of 2018 a group of local people, palestinian activists, international activists, members of Jordan Valley Solidarity and members of the Palestinians Farmer Union took joint action in Bardala village. Everyone met in the field of Hussain Sawafath’s family, were the day before Israeli military forces had destroyed 320 olives trees.

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As the morning drew on journalist, heath workers and members of the local authority from Bardala and other nearther villages began to arrive.

A military jeep began to patrol the area attempting to prevent the action, but eventually left.

At 9 am the work of planting new olives trees and cleaning the area got started, ready to plant the new trees, donated by the Palestinians Farmers Union.

The tree planting progressed really quickly, due to the large crowd that had assembled.

After 30 minutes, 20 armed soldiers arrived in four more military jeeps. After having a short talk with some activist and members of the authority, they surrounded the field and attempted to intimidate people by photographing them. But we were not prepared to be intimidated. We were able to finish planting all the trees despite the harrasment from the occuption forces.

The destruction of olive trees in Bardala, and harassment of those trying to replant them, is yet another tool used by the occupation forces to pressurise people to leave their land. The Jordan Valley is traditionally an agriculture area. Therefore preventing farmers from accessing their land, destroying and confiscating machinery, water resources, plants and farm animals are he actions that can cause the most damage to the local communities.