by David Steele - IMEMC & Agencies 

The Palestine News Network reports that the Israeli army uprooted over 230 olive trees near Bethlehem.

File - Olive trees destroyed and uprooted by the army - Active Stills

The trees were uprooted and confiscated by the army, who used bulldozers amongst other equipment.

The land was cleared in the village of Jub'a, which is located to the south of Bethlehem.

The land belongs to the Abu Latifeh family. According to the PNN, trucks took the trees to an unknown location.

Some 40 trees have also been removed from the village of Mishmas, it is alleged. Olive trees are regularly damaged or uprooted across the West Bank.

Extremist settlers oftern vandalize and destroy Palestinian farmland, although trees are also often uprooted by the Israeli army.

                                             http://www.imemc.org/article/60693

AND ITS NOT THE FIRST TIME:

100s of Palestinians’ olive trees uprooted outside Bethlehem

and other news from Today in Palestine:Land, property theft & destruction / Ethnic cleansing / Apartheid

Visualizing occupation: divide and conquer
972blog 21 July by Michael Vexler -- Despite sharing a national identity, the Palestinian people are parceled into differential categories along geographical, socioeconomic, humanitarian, political and civilian lines determined by Israel: Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship, residents of East Jerusalem, those living in the West Bank, those in the Gaza Strip, and the refugees.  In this seventh illustration in a series of infographics on Palestinian civilian life under occupation, see the divisions that dictate Palestinian existence.
link to 972mag.com

http://mondoweiss.net/2012/07/100s-of-palestinians-olive-trees-upro...

Olive trees destroyed outside Bethlehem

Broken olive tree

This morning Maher Abu Sab’a’ discovered that 248 out of the 250 olive tree saplings that had recently been planted on his land had been destroyed over-night. The saplings which had been planted three months previously had been systematically uprooted from the earth and broken with their remains left scattered over the earth. The land is situated outside Bethlehem next to a number of illegal Israeli settlements including Kiryat Arba, one of the largest illegal settlement in the West Bank with approximately 10,000 inhabitants. The attack took place right next to the Israeli checkpoint and watch tower on road 60, however it would appear that there was no intervention in the attack. Last year Maher lost all of the almond and grape trees from his land when settlers set light to the same field. He now plans to re-plant all of the trees he has lost.

by Kate   http://palsolidarity.org/2011/05/olive-trees-destroyed-outsi...