When the armed guard approached the three women Aischa went towards him and told him: “You killed all our trees”. The guard just said: “Leave from here, please”. When Aischa came back to the two Internationals he shouted to them: “Go away”. Kate replied: “Why should we go away? This is her land”. He demanded: “Show me the papers”. And Kate retorted: “She doesn´t have to show you”. It seems that he understood who was right as he just said ok and went back to the settlement.

We sat down under an olive tree of the neighbour´s groves and the family insisted that we eat some of the sweets they only brought for us, because they assumed that we are not fasting during Ramadan. They told us, that their family who was in Deir Istia when the settlement was built in 1985 fought for their land and trees then. In 1999 they went to the court the last time. They showed us the papers of ownership and from the lawyer as well as maps from their land later when we were in their house.

Now the former olive grove looks like a wild and useless field. That makes it easier for the settlement to expand and build new houses. The strategy seems obvious. If the land gets useless to the farmers because their trees are uprooted and burned, they won´t risk being shot trying to start from the beginning. After three years this gives the Israeli Occupation Forces the legal right to annex it as Israeli property.