A Ridge that Divides

Looking across the valley, I see the land of a farmer I know. His family land runs from the olive trees below his house up over the ridge with about half his fields sloping down the other side into the next valley.

For generations his family has walked through or shepherded their sheep through their closer fields and onto their farther fields.

As part of the illegal settlement expansion and aggression since Oct 7th, the settlers, backed by the occupying army, have arbitrarily denied the farmer permission to use or even pass over his own land on the ridge.

To reach half of his fields he now must get in a car and drive almost an hour around the illegal settlement. A settlement that was built on stolen Palestinian land in the first place.

So, working his fields is now at best complicated and probably impractical. Of course, grazing his sheep on his farther fields is now impossible.