Ramallah: Israeli colonists from the colony of Yitzhar, south of the city of Nablus set alight a Palestinian poultry farm, causing the deaths of thousands of birds and animals on Thursday morning.

The poultry farm, located to the side of the village of Madama and close to Route 60 north of the Zaatarah Junction (Tapuach Junction), is owned by Yasser Taher Al Qout. It has suffered financial losses of greater than a quarter million Shekels because of the fire.

Both Palestinian authorities and the residents of the village are certain that Israeli colonists burned the poultry farm because the residents found Israeli made boxes of matches and containers containing the type of fuel used to ignite the blaze.

Ehab Al Qout, a member of Madama Village Council, said that the birds were brought to the farm only a day ago and that the Israeli colonists were aware of that fact.

“The colonists have added yet another violation by attacking the poultry farm just to increase the suffering of the Palestinian farmers in the area,” he told Gulf News.

“The colonists know their targets perfectly and know the ways to harm the Palestinians.”

Palestinians widely regard the residents of the colony of Yitzhar as the most harmful and dangerous in the West Bank. The Palestinian firefighters failed to show up in time to fight the fire at the farm, despite the fact that there is one civil defence centre in the nearby village of Boureen.

The owner of the poultry farm has lodged an official complaint with the Israeli Police via the Palestinian-Israeli Civil Affairs Coordination Liaison Office, accusing the Israeli colonists of Yitzhar with setting his farm alight.

To support his claim, he provided the pieces of evidence he and the fellow villagers collected from the scene. The farm’s owner urged the Israeli police to pay a visit to the site and inspect it themselves to evaluate the damage the Israeli colonists have caused to the entire region’s poultry industry.

Al Qout said that the Israeli colonists reached the farm from the routes, which connect their colony with other colonies in the Nablus area or via routes which lead to Israeli colonies in Qalqilia.

In the same area, he said, colonists of Yitzhar had previously attacked municipal engineers and workers who were working on a water well. At least two Palestinians engineers and workers were hospitalised following the attack.

“The Israeli colonists acted in revenge after the fights and problems, which erupted between the colonists of Yizthar and the Israeli military forces that destroyed three houses (moving caravans) built outside the boundaries of the colony,” he said.

Al Qout claimed that the Israeli colonists assumed Palestinians were behind the demolition and have taken revenge on them even though the Palestinians did not have anything to do with this.

Palestinians demand all the Israeli based colonies in the West Bank be dismantled and removed not just a couple of caravans, which were built against the will of the local authority of the colony of Yizhar itself.

Ghassan Doghlous, the Palestinian official from the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) who oversees the Israeli colonial activities in the northern areas of the West Bank, told Gulf News that all the clues and the initial investigations into the blaze, which gutted the farm indicate it was caused by the Israeli colonists.