Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian Authority official monitoring settler activity in the northern West Bank, said occupiers from nearby settlement outpost of Havat Gilad arrived at the West Bank village of Tel and destroyed several dunams planted with vegetables.

Daghlas added that occupiers also have cut dozens of almond and vine trees in the southern past of the village.

Meanwhile, the head of Aqraba village council Jawdat Bani Jaber said that occupiers set fire to 17 sheep.

Bani Jawdat said that the occupiers attacked Palestinian shepherded Samir Khader and tried to seize control over his herd. He added that when the occupiers failed, they set fire to Khader’s herd causing the death of 17 sheep.

In recent months Jewish occupiers have increased their acts of harassment against Palestinians in the West Bank as a “price tag” for the decision of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on November 2009 that a 10-month partial moratorium on new housing starts in the West Bank settlements. Netanyahu said the move was in a bid to revive the peace talks with the Palestinians.

The Palestinian leadership decided to halt the talks with Israel, after the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refused to extend the ten-month moratorium.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian officials had threatened to use other diplomatic options, including dissolving the Palestinian Authority in case Israel keeps insisting not to freeze settlement.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian negotiator Mohammed Ishtayeh said that the Palestinian Authority (PA) “if all efforts to revive the stalled peace talks with Israel failed.”

Ishtayeh, also member of Fatah’s Central Committee, said in a press statement that “(Israel’s) occupation of West Bank will force us not to differentiate between Haifa and Ramallah.” He was referring to the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Haifa and to West Bank city of Ramallah.

“If Israel insists on occupying the West Bank, there is nothing to force us not to differentiate between Haifa and Ramallah.”

According to the official, “Israel is wrong if it believes that the PA accepts to be an authority without power. We are not municipalities.”

He threatened that the PA will hand over the municipalities’ authorities back to Israel if the peace horizon appears to be blocked.”

He also warned the “two state solution is not available all the time.”