Between the Shaghour mountains in the north and Mount Turan in the south, the Batouf plain extends from the south of the city of Acre to the city of Saffuriyya, with an area of 70,000 dunums, and a length from east to west, about 16 kilometers, and a width of up to 3.5 kilometers.
All areas of the plain are food basket for the people of the villages and cities of the Palestinian Galilee, it is the most fertile land of the area, where Palestinian farmers grow all kinds of trees, fruits, and agricultural crops throughout the seasons.
But this year, with the start of the olive harvest season in Palestine at the beginning of October, and for a month, farmers will not be able to enter their lands in the Batouf plain, to harvest the fruits they planted, or to plant new crops, due to the Israeli crackdown. This period, with the aim of evacuating agricultural land in the plain.
In October, the Israeli Water Authority confiscated 235 dunums of agricultural land belonging to residents of the village of Kafr Manda in the Galilee. During the past two months, an Israeli campaign targeting the Batouf plain began to distribute notices to a group of farmers for evacuation and demolition. As well as the fence in their land, in addition to fined large sums amounted to one amount to 300 thousand shekels.
Lullaby scheme
The campaign, led by the Israeli Planning and Construction Committee, comes as part of Israeli authoritarian plans, including the Tama 35 plan, which considers the Batouf plain an open area where construction and development are forbidden, according to Yasser Omar, the former provincial council chairman.
"At this stage, the Israeli government is looking at a project called Tama 35, one of the most dangerous projects in the Batouf Valley, which provides for the area to become landscape, thus preventing landowners and farmers from using and developing agricultural land," Omar said.
Speaking to Emirates Today, the former regional council chairman in Al-Battouf noted that Israel's attention to the plain, which in the past was the sole source of livelihood for thousands of families, led to the confiscation of land and subjecting them to Jewish councils, as well as restricting farmers and preventing them from farming.
Hanna Sweid, director of the Arab Center for Alternative Planning in the Galilee, points out that what the planning and construction committee is doing is under the pretext of unlicensed construction, in order to Judaize the Batouf area and take full control of its lands.
"Israel 's argument is that Al - Batouf is an open area free of any construction or development, and therefore there is a process of terror and intimidation of farmers through this campaign, even though this throne is not construction or development," he said.
"The Israeli organizing and construction committees are based on the fact that anything that stands out from the surface of the land is a building, and even the fences have not been spared from this campaign, which is a process of control, which ultimately aims to evacuate the buttocks from farmers and even the throne that is part of a tradition," "There is an attempt to end it and keep the Batouf plain open to the public view."
The Batouf plain, according to Sweden, is deliberately neglected, turning it from the food basket of the region to open land, where most of the lands of the Batouf plain were deprived of agricultural irrigation water despite the presence of more than eight artesian water wells in it, as well as any project that develops agriculture in it.
Loss of income
Ali Nassar, a farmer from the town of Ghariba in the Galilee, is one of the farmers who received demolition orders.
"Since 2000, I have been planting a variety of agricultural crops inside my land. This farming is a source of income for families, like the rest of the farmers. We have never abandoned our land, and we have remained committed to taking care of it and growing it until it became the first food basket in the Galilee."
He adds that «the land we plant in the valley of Batouf because of its fertility and importance Israel seeks to control it completely by restricting us, to evict us from the land».
Al-Battouf plain was subjected to deliberate neglect, turning it from the area's food basket into open lands.Most of the Al-Battouf plain lands were deprived of agricultural irrigation water despite the existence of more than 8 artesian water wells in it and any project that develops agriculture there.
In October, the Israeli Water Authority (Mekorot) confiscated 235 dunums of agricultural land belonging to residents of the village of Kafr Manda in the Galilee.