The Israel Defense Forces and Civil Administration uprooted 500 Palestinian trees in the village of Nahlin in the Gush Etzion region. The Palestinians sarcastically said this must be part of the easements the IDF announced hours earlier, but the Civil Administration said an evacuation order was issued to the Palestinians over two months ago for illegally trespassing on the land.

Residents of Nahlin told Ynet that dozens of soldiers in jeeps and bulldozers raided the village on Monday. In total, 500 plants, including olive trees, fig trees, prickly pear cactus plants, almond trees and grape vines, some hundreds of years old, were uprooted.

Large plots of land on which sage and za'atar had been planted were also cleared. The Civil Administration officers used manual and electric saws, as well as bulldozers.

"On the same day the Israelis speak of easements, they carry out a brutal tree massacre," said Nahlin council head Osama Shkarna, who also serves on the village's committee for land protection.

"They destroyed 40 dunams (roughly 10 acres), and the land they are talking about is about 2,000 dunams (494 acres). We are afraid that they are planning to uproot thousands of trees."

According to Shkarna, the true purpose behind the uprooting is to connect the settlements of Givot and Beitar Illit in eastern Gush Etzion. "This is strategic land, and the purpose of the uprooting is to clear the land in order to connect between the two settlements."

'Land not privately owned'

The Civil Administration said in response, "The land in question is not privately owned by the residents, and therefore, an evacuation order was issued against the site on March 3, 2010. In the past two months, the residents did not submit an objection to the Civil Administration, and the order was therefore executed.

"Claims that the residents of the village and its representatives did not receive the order are baseless, and are an attempt to mislead the public. Proof of this is that on the same day the order was executed, a lawyer appointed by the residents arrived at the Civil Administration's offices to file an objection with a copy of the order in his possession.

"The Civil Administration will continue to apply the necessary sensitivity in order to enforce the law on the entire population of Judea and Samaria."

Shkarna firmly rejected the Civil Administration's claims that the land in question belongs to the State: "All the residents, including myself, have documents and kushans (ownership certificates from the Ottoman period) that attest to our ownership of this land, and to the fact that it is registered under our name at the Tabo (land registry)."

Shmulik Grossman contributed to this report