Thirty calves were stolen this week from Danny Gross's cattle farm in Givat Yoav, in the southern Golan Heights.
Gross told Arutz Sheva's Hebrew news service that there were alerts about thefts in the region after cattle fences were cut in several places. Despite the heightened alert, however, the thieves succeeded in carrying out a large scale theft, estimated at hundreds of thousands of shekels.
The month of Ramadan is one of heightened demand for meat in the Muslim sector and thievery is rampant. Gross said that two large and expensive tractors were stolen at Givat Yoav this month and sixty sheep were stolen from sheep farmer Rami Ben Tzvi.
Haim Dayan, who heads the Union of Farmers of Cattle for Meat, said that annually on Ramadan, "teas of cattle thieves carry out large scale and sophisticated thefts of cattle, sheep and goats, and unfortunately often succeed."
Despite the difficulty in catching the teams, which are professional and well organized, Border Police do succeed in catching many of them, said Dayan.