Engulfed in Smoke

[UNVERIFIED CONTENT] NILIN, WEST BANK (IRIN) - As the olive harvest gets under way in the West Bank, residents of the Palestinian town of Nilin say much of their land, where their trees are, is off limits because of Israel's wall. According to estimates by residents, some 5,000 olive trees sit on 270 hectares between the path of the wall and the border of the West Bank with Israel, known as the Green Line. "People depend on this land, especially because they have already lost so much," said Hindi Misleh, an activist in the village. The village, Misleh said, lost over 4,000 hectares of land to Israel in the 1948 war and then another 800 to Israeli settlements which started to pop up around Nilin in the 1980s. "Every year the settlers took more land," he said. The villagers started fierce protests. "The goal was to stop the construction of the wall," said Hindi the activist. So far, the protests have delayed work by months.