Israeli forces uproot olive trees and bulldoze land near Ramallah Israeli occupation forces bulldozed Palestinian land and tore up dozens of olive trees in the town of Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah, on Friday, escalating an ongoing campaign of land seizure. Local sources said Israeli forces pushed into the area around the home of the Abu Awad family, where bulldozers levelled farmland and uprooted long-standing olive trees, a key source of livelihood for local residents. Residents said the destruction did not begin on Friday. Israeli authorities have been carrying out sustained land bulldozing in Turmus Ayya for around three months, during which soldiers and machinery have uprooted an estimated 4,000 olive trees and ploughed through hundreds of hectares of agricultural land. The cleared land, locals say, serves the expansion of a newly established illegal settler outpost to the west of the town, part of Israel’s broader policy of settlement expansion and forced displacement in the occupied West Bank.