Attorney Nati Rom, a legal activist for the Land of Israel organization, spoke with Israel National News from the scene of violent clashes that occurred during the uprooting of a Jewish-owned orchard in Samaria on Wednesday morning, and described what took place from his perspective.
“Unfortunately, behind me is a vineyard and olive trees that the farmer here tended for 20 years and which are now being demolished,” Rom said.
He stressed that there was “a great deal of violence on the part of the police” at the scene.
“We are located to the west of Shiloh. It's very sad to see that even when we have a right-wing government, we still see such scenes,” he added.
“Hopefully, this will be the last such incident. The Arabs have built thousands and thousands of illegal homes on government land not far from here, and nobody came to demolish them. Yet now they're coming here to destroy these beautiful plantations into which Jewish pioneers invested decades of labor, right in the heart of Israel in Judea and Samaria."
The Israeli Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration for Judea and Samaria uprooted a Jewish-owned orchard and olive grove in Samaria on Wednesday morning, defying the instructions of Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism Party).
Dozens of yeshiva and seminary students gathered at the olive grove and fruit orchard, owned by Chen Ben-Eliyahu and located in the Shilo Valley in the Binyamin district of Samaria, in an attempt to prevent the demolition.