Israeli settlers raided an area near the village of al-Mughayer, northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, on Friday and uprooted and chopped off 40 Palestinian-owned olive trees, WAFA news agency reported, citing a local activist.

Faraj Na’san, former Head of al-Mughayer Village Council, told WAFA that the settlers destroyed trees that had been there for over 30 years and belonged to the Na’san family.

The activist said that the settlers intentionally try to make life more difficult for Palestinians, adding that uprooting olive trees has been more frequent in that area, as part of the settlers’ plans to remove any Palestinian trace so they could build illegal settlements.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), "Olive-based livelihoods in many areas of the West Bank are undermined by Israeli settlers who uproot and vandalize olive trees, and by intimidation and the physical assaults on farmers during the harvest itself."

Israeli authorities rarely prosecute the routine Israeli settler violence against Palestinians.

According to WAFA, “between 500,000 and 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in violation of international law.”