Two Palestinian boys sustained intoxication today and about 400 grape trees were harmed due to pesticides sprayed to the trees by illegal Israeli settlers in the village of al-Khader, to the south of Bethlehem city in the occupied West Bank, according to local sources.
Ahmad Salah, a local anti-settlement activist, told WAFA that illegal settlers from a nearby Israeli settlement broke into a grape-planted orchard and sprayed the trees with pesticides, harming about 400 trees belonging to a local Palestinian farmer, identified as Mohammad Mahmoud Salah.
Salah said two Palestinian children sustained suffocation as a result of involuntarily inhaling the smell of the pesticides, and were moved to hospital for medical treatment.
Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.
Settler violence includes property and mosque arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.
There are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency