West Bank woman shot in the back by Israeli soldiers while harvesting olives

Israel shot dead a 59-year-old Palestinian woman while attending to her family’s olive grove in the village of Faqqua, east of Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank.

Hanan Abu Salami was shot in the back Thursday morning as she was picking olives with other members of her family when soldiers stationed on the nearby separation wall opened fire, her son told Middle East Eye.

Faris Abu Salami, who was with his mother when she was shot, said the local council had negotiated permission from the Israeli army for the family and other villagers to pick olives on their lands providing they stayed at least 100 meters from the wall.

Abu Salami said his family was much further than that from the wall. 

He said the Israelis suddenly started shooting randomly. 

When the family started collecting their things to leave and moved away, he said his father waved his white hat in the air hoping they would stop. 

But they shot his mother in the back as they were fleeing the shooting.

This year’s olive harvest season in the West Bank has seen Palestinians subjected to repeated attacks by Israeli settlers and Israeli security forces.

Trees have been set on fire and damaged, crops stolen, and farmers prevented from reaching their lands or targeted while harvesting the crop.

Earlier this month, more than 50 armed settlers attacked a Palestinian family harvesting olives in the village of al-Lubban al-Gharbi, northwest of Ramallah.