Ramallah – Ma’an – As part of its efforts to strengthen the steadfastness of Palestinian farmers and empower them economically, and to stand against systematic settlement policies and plans to control Palestinian lands, the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature concluded the implementation of the “Gharas Al Khair” project in Palestine, funded by the Palestine Advocacy Association – Bahrain, and supervised by the Kaf Humanitarian Foundation in Bahrain.
The project, which began last February, resulted in planting 145 dunums in various regions of Palestine with (5,570) diverse fruit trees of local olives, almonds, grapes, citrus fruits and palms, targeting 28 farmers who support more than 245 people, and providing about 140 job opportunities for the targeted farmers.
The project, which was implemented on agricultural lands damaged by the apartheid wall, settlement expansion or bypass roads, aims to contribute to the rehabilitation of the agricultural sector in Palestine, enhance food security for families, c
ontribute to achieving self-sufficiency in some crops, and economic empowerment by providing job opportunities and additional sources of income for farmers’ families, in addition to protecting lands from confiscation and stopping environmental degradation resulting from uprooting trees.
It is worth noting that the ‘Gharas Al Khair’ project is part of the Million Trees Program launched by the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature in the Palestinian territories in 2001, under the slogan ‘They Uproot a Tree… We Plant Ten,’ in which the Arab Group planted about 3 million fruitful trees in various lands in Palestine.
The Director General of the Arab Group for the Protection of Nature, Mariam Al-Jaajaa, explained that the importance of the program is highlighted in light of the Israeli entity’s deliberate confiscation of lands not used for agricultural purposes, in addition to its systematic targeting of the agricultural sector in general, in addition to the high rates of food insecurity and unemployment in P
alestine, and the weak contribution of Arab and Islamic capital to environmental and agricultural financing, while pointing out the urgent need of farmers to access productive inputs to continue their projects.
Al-Jajaa indicated that the number of trees uprooted by the Israeli occupation between 2000 and 2021 exceeded 3,232,375 million trees, most of which were olive and citrus trees.
Source: Maan News Agency