A deadly olive harvest season ends in the West Bank
Restrictions and attacks by the Israeli military, together with rampant settler violence, left many Palestinians unable to harvest this year's crop.
The Palestinian village of Faqqu’a, situated at the northern tip of the occupied West Bank, is encircled by Israel’s separation barrier from three sides. As such, for the past two decades since the barrier was built, residents of the village have been required to obtain approval from the Israeli military before they can access over 4,000 dunams of their agricultural land (nearly 1,000 acres).
Hussam Abu Salama owns seven dunams (1.7 acres) of olive-planted land in this area. Each year, when the harvest season comes around, he waits for the army to give them the go-ahead. This year, the village council got the green light to begin the harvest on Oct. 16. “I wish we hadn’t received permission,” Abu Salama told +972.
The following morning, he went with his wife, Hanan, and their son to begin picking olives on their land. “We were about 100 meters from the barrier when an army vehicle arrived,” he recounted. “One of the soldiers fired two shots into the air. We got back into our car and drove further away.”
The family repositioned themselves some 250 meters from the barrier, thinking that would be far enough away to satisfy the army. At around 10 a.m., however, as they were picking, a white patrol vehicle came and stopped nearby. “I was watching the soldiers; it did not cross my mind what they would do next,” Abu Salama said. “We were not posing any threat to them.”
Suddenly, the soldiers opened fire directly at the family. “There were bullets everywhere,” Abu Salama said. Moments later, Hanan screamed: “Hussam, Hussam, I’ve been hit!”
With Hanan bleeding from her right side, Abu Salama and his son rushed to carry her back to their car. His son drove while Abu Salama called for an ambulance. “Blood started coming out of Hanan’s mouth,” he recounted. “I realized I was going to lose her.”
They drove four kilometers before eventually meeting the ambulance. “I watched as the paramedics tried to resuscitate her,” Abu Salama said. “Hanan was slipping away.”
They eventually reached Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin, but within 10 minutes, doctors informed Abu Salama that Hanan had passed away. “It was a shock,” he said. “I lost my wife and my land.”
‘People don’t want to risk their lives for olives’
Every year, around October, Palestinian families gather under their olive trees to harvest the past year’s produce. But for many olive farmers in the West Bank, this was another exceptionally difficult year, amid a surge in Israeli settler and military violencethat is forcing Palestinians off their land.
Under the shadow of the ongoing Israeli assault on Gaza, where harvesting olives has become virtually impossible, Israeli settlers have been burning and stealing from olive groves across the West Bank and assaulting those who attempt to harvest their crop. “People are terrified,” Raafat Abu Sheikha, head of the local council in the village of Karma, near Hebron, told +972. “They don’t want to risk their lives for olives, even if it’s their livelihood.”
Last year, the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din documented 113 incidents of violence against Palestinians during the olive harvest — including 61 settler attacks in the absence of soldiers, 32 incidents where Israeli soldiers were present while settlers attacked, and 20 assaults by soldiers themselves. According to the UN Office for the Coordination and Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 96,000 dunams (over 23,000 acres) of olive-planted land in the West Bank went unharvested last year as a result, causing losses to Palestinian farmers valued at approximately $10 million.
Jewish settlers and Israeli soldiers are seen watching Palestinian farmers and left-wing activists while they pick olives during the annual harvest season, in the village of Burqa, east of Ramallah, occupied West Bank, October 20, 2024. (Flash90)
In the village of Susiya in the South Hebron Hills, this harvest season started much like last year, with regular attacks by residents of the nearby Israeli settlement bearing the same name. Despite the settlers’ best efforts, however, the Palestinian farmers were able to assert their right to stay on their lands.
Khader Nawaja’a, a farmer from Susiya, describes the olive season as “Eid” — a time of celebration. This year, he started harvesting his six dunams of land (around 1.5 acres) in the village as usual, joined by family members and several Israeli activists offering a “protective presence.” But things took a turn on the morning of Oct. 18, when three soldiers rushed over from one of the nearby hills.
According to Nawaja’a, the soldiers started with their usual question: “What are you doing here?” “We are picking olives, and this is my land,” Nawaja’a responded. “Stop working until the site is inspected,” one of the soldiers ordered.
Moments later, one of the Israeli activists accompanying Nawaja’a yelled out: “There are settlers!” All of a sudden, three men, one of them masked, emerged from behind a line of trees carrying wooden clubs.
“One masked settler hit me on my left side with a stick resembling a baseball bat,” Zoria Haddad, a 62-year-old activist present that day, told +972. “I fell to the ground. I thought I would die from the pain. I have never felt such pain before.”
Rather than protecting Haddad, however, the soldiers came to the defense of her attacker, as is common in such situations. They then gently ushered him and the other settlers away from the area.
Nawaja’a called the Israeli police to report the incident, but they wasted time asking pointless questions instead of sending officers to the area as soon as possible — something Nawaja’a says is a common tactic designed to give the settlers time to leave the area before police arrive. After some time, a Palestinian ambulance arrived at the grove, and Haddad was transported to the Abu Hasan Al Qasam Governmental Hospital in Yatta, the closest city, where doctors diagnosed her with a fractured rib.
After a video of the attack circulated on social media, Israeli police contacted Haddad for details. She was initially reluctant to engage, but residents of the village persuaded her to go to the police station in the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba and lodge a complaint against the settlers. At the time of writing, she still has not received any update from the police.
‘There is no law to hold them accountable’
Situated south of Hebron in the southern West Bank, the Palestinian village of Karma is now sandwiched between the settlement of Otniel to the south and a new outpost that settlers established late last year to the north.
Jibreen Al-Awawdeh, a 60-year-old farmer from the village, told +972 that he has been unable to access his land since the war began due to the increase in settler violence and harassment. “There is no law to hold them accountable,” he lamented.
Due to the proximity of the settlement, the army requires Al-Awawdeh to obtain prior approval to access his own land. On Dec. 5, he was finally able to do so. At 9 a.m. Al-Awawdeh and his son Akram headed out to their plot, east of the village, to start harvesting.
Israeli soldiers stop Palestinian farmers from reaching their olive groves through the access gate of the Israeli settlement of Elon Moreh, during the harvest season in the village of Salem, east of Nablus, occupied West Bank, November 27, 2024. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)
Al-Awawdeh began by inspecting the 100 olive tree seedlings he had planted a year and a half ago, checking how they had fared in his absence. He then joined Akram in picking olives. “We couldn’t place mats under the trees [to catch falling olives] because the thorns had grown too large,” he explained. “I was saddened by what I saw.”
Less than an hour later, the father and son, who were alone in the valley, saw an army patrol moving toward them from the nearby settlement. Three soldiers started shouting at them: “Stand still! Don’t move!”
“As soon as the soldiers arrived, one of them punched me in the face, while another attacked my son and knocked him onto the thorns,” Al-Awawdeh said. “I tried to reach Akram, but a soldier hit my back with the butt of his rifle.”
At that point, Al-Awawdeh said that one of the soldiers shouted at them: “Die! Get away from here!” He and Akram got up and ran, leaving behind the olives they had picked. “We were running through the large thorns,” he recounted “We almost fell into a hole in the ground.”
The soldiers caught up with them and ordered Al-Awawdeh and his son to sit on the ground. One of them confiscated Akram’s phone and their ID cards. Al-Awawdeh tried to explain that he had coordinated the visit to his land with the army, but the soldier interrupted him yelling: “Shut up, everyone is going to die today.” According to Al-Awawdeh, they were forced to sit there for over 20 minutes before the soldiers finally let them go on the condition that they would leave the area. They have not been allowed back since.
‘I felt the soldier was going to kill him’
By restricting Palestinians from accessing their land, the Israeli army enables settlers to take advantage. Mohammed Sweiti, an olive farmer from the village of Khalet Taha, southwest of Hebron, eventually received permission from the army to access his six dunams (1.5 acres) of olive-planted land near the settlement of Negohot on Oct. 21 — only to find that settlers had already stolen all of the fruits.
Israeli soldiers disperse Palestinian farmers and left-wing activists, preventing them from picking olives during the annual harvest season, in the village of Qusra, occupied West Bank, October 29, 2024. (Flash90)
To add insult to injury, Israeli soldiers detained Sweiti and his family that day as they were documenting the damage that settlers had caused to their trees. The soldiers confiscated their phones, deleting all the photos they had taken of the trees, and forced them to leave the area, citing a lack of “prior coordination.”
Less than a week later, on the other side of Negohot, Daoud Ehribat, a farmer from the village of Sikka, saw a settler install an iron gate to block Palestinians from their lands. According to him, Israeli soldiers were present, protecting the settler as he installed the gate.
Further north, in the Nablus district, the village of Qaryut stands as a witness to the escalating crimes of Israeli settlers. Ghassan Al-Saher, a member of the village council, told +972 that farmers waited for weeks for the army’s approval to access their lands in the western part of the village, known as Batisha, where the dense canopy of ancient olive trees almost conceals the soil. They finally received permission on Nov. 5 — but what they found, Al-Saher said, was a “massacre.”
“About 1,340 olive trees had been slashed down, many of them burned,” he said. “This is what we have been able to count so far. The shock will never leave the village’s residents.”
On the eastern side of the village, 74-year-old farmer Saher Al-Mousa and his family eagerly awaited the army’s approval to harvest from the ancient olive trees that have grown on his five dunams (1.25 acres) of land for generations. He anticipated a good harvest this year; ideally, his trees should produce 150 kilograms of olive oil, valued at approximately $2,000.
Olive trees slashed by Israeli settlers in the Palestinian village of Qaryut, northern occupied West Bank. (Ghassan Al-Mousa)
After finally receiving approval, Al-Mousa and his sons, Ghassan and Jamal, went on Nov. 1 to pick their olives. At 9 a.m., having only been on the land for about 30 minutes, they saw an off-road vehicle descending down from the settlement of Shiloh, situated on the opposite hill. Three soldiers disembarked, and headed toward Al-Mousa and his sons. “They were shouting and had their weapons drawn as they approached us,” he recalled.
“One of them attacked me, pushing me to the ground with his hands, while the other two attacked my sons,” he continued. “One soldier knocked Ghassan onto his back and pressed a rifle against his chest. I felt he was going to kill him. Who would stop him?!”
According to Al-Mousa, Ghassan shouted at the soldiers: “What do you want? This is our land!” The soldier, speaking in clunky Arabic and with his weapon still trained on them, yelled back: “Shut up, these olives are ours. Leave, and don’t come back here again, or I’ll detain you.” Having feared he would lose his son, Al-Mousa decided not to argue with them, and they got up and left.
In response to +972’s request for comment regarding the killing of Hanan Abu Salama, an Israeli army spokesperson stated: “An investigation into the incident has been launched by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division, following the instructions of the Military Prosecutor’s Office. As a matter of course, it is not possible to provide details about an ongoing investigation. Once completed, the conclusions will be submitted for review by the prosecution. The commanding officers present during the incident have been suspended from their duties pending the conclusion of the investigations.”