Olive groves under siege: Palestinian families face Israeli violence during harvest

“I felt like I was dying,” said Afaf Abu Alia, recalling the moment Israeli settlers took turns to beat her with sticks as she and her family harvested olives in a village near Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.

Pointing to her exhausted body and speaking in a barely audible voice, the 53-year-old Palestinian added: “I was alone among more than 20 settlers… They beat me on my head and hands… here, and here.”

Afaf and her family had headed out early on Sunday morning to pick olives in Turmus Ayya. After about three hours, a small group of settlers - coming from nearby settlements including Maale Levona, Shilo, Givat Harel and Eli - attacked them.

Along with her husband, sons and brothers-in-law and their wives, Afaf fled to a distant, safer area, leaving behind their tools, vehicle, and the olives they had already harvested.

About half an hour later, when the settlers left, the family returned to find their vehicle smashed and their harvest stolen. They decided to move to a safer plot of land, but on the way an Israeli military patrol, sent to protect the settlers, intercepted them and fired a gas canister in their direction. Afaf, who suffers from a respiratory allergy, was overcome by the gas.

As the family tried to recover, the settlers returned in greater numbers. Everyone fled except Afaf, who couldn’t move because of the gas.

“When they approached me, I couldn’t tell who they were. I thought they were foreign activists,” she told Middle East Eye.

She suffered repeated blows to the head, which caused brain bleeding, leaving her in intensive care for two days. She also had bruises across her body and severe blood loss. 

“They tried to kill me by focusing their blows on my head,” she said.

It was not the first time Afaf and her family had been attacked during the olive harvest, but they had never previously experienced such brutality. 

“They’ve become bolder towards Palestinians,” she said, describing how, over the past two years of escalating violence, every settler assault has taken place under the protection of Israeli soldiers.

'A massacre against olive trees'

Behind the attack on the Abu Alia family lies another painful story.

The land where they were assaulted doesn’t even belong to them. They had been forced to rent olive groves in a neighbouring village after settlers repeatedly targeted them on their own land in al-Mughayyir, east of Ramallah.

As Afaf spoke about the day settlers cut down their olive trees, she broke down in tears: “When they cut our olive trees, it felt like they were gouging out our eyes. The olive tree is so precious to us - like our own children.”

Afaf’s relative, Ayman Abu Alia, was also attacked that day. Settlers smashed his car and beat him with sticks across his body. He told MEE that the family lost 400 olive trees last August, when Israeli bulldozers and settlers uprooted them all in a single day.

“It was a massacre against olive trees. Every family in the village lost theirs,” he said.

For the Abu Alia family, the loss was not only economic, it was the destruction of their heritage. Their great-grandfather had planted those groves more than 150 years ago, all of them ancient Roman olive trees - the local term for centuries-old varieties in Palestine.

“They know how deeply we’re attached to the olive tree,” Ayman said. “That’s why they destroy them, to drive us off our land.”

Attacks across the West Bank

The violence is not confined to al-Mughayyir or Turmus Ayya.

Since the start of the olive harvest - which runs from October to late December, according to the Palestinian agriculture ministry - more than 158 settler attacks, carried out under the protection of the Israeli army, have been documented by the Palestinian Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission.

Palestine has around 12.5 million olive trees, including one million that once stood in the Gaza Strip but have been destroyed by war.

In the West Bank, olive trees cover some 550,000 dunams (around 136,000 acres) of farmland out of a total of 1.2 million dunams. Yet over the past two years, Israeli army and settler violence has prevented farmers from accessing 110,000 dunams of their land.

Palestine’s annual olive production usually ranges between 17,000 and 22,000 tonnes, but this season it is expected to fall to just 7,000 tonnes - the lowest in decades.

Palestinians consider the olive harvest “the father of all agricultural seasons”. Every member of the family takes part in it as a communal tradition, preserving rituals and details passed down from generation to generation, said agriculture ministry spokesperson Mahmoud Ftafatfa.

More than 110,000 families, roughly half a million Palestinians, depend on the olive sector for their livelihoods. But with settler attacks up 20 percent since the start of the season, and 10,000 olive trees burned or uprooted since January, losses have already exceeded $70m, according to ministry estimates.

'Older than the State of Israel'

The impact is most visible in areas where Palestinians are completely barred from reaching their groves, such as Jalbun village, east of Jenin, near the Green Line separating the West Bank from Israel.

In 2004, Israel built a separation wall there, cutting off more than 1,500 dunams of land - including 350 dunams of olive groves. Farmers are only allowed access on two or three days a year, through special permits issued by Israeli authorities during the harvest.

Since 7 October 2023, however, Israel has refused to grant permits to around 100 farmers whose land lies beyond the wall. In July, settlers also cut down dozens of trees in the area.

Mohammad Abu al-Rabb, one of those farmers, has been unable to reach his 15-dunam grove for three consecutive seasons, losing his family’s entire yield as a result.

Despite this, he still went to the Israeli military liaison office this year, seeking a permit, but failed.

“We used to take advantage of the olive harvest season to reach the land, work it, and check on it. Now we can’t even see it,” he told MEE.

He said the land had been cultivated by his grandfather and father and was “older than the State of Israel itself.

“They target olive groves because they know the spiritual bond between us and the tree,” he said. “It’s not just a tree, it’s our ancestors’ legacy, and their will for us to protect it.”

Spiritual ties

This bond, said Hamzeh Aqrabawi, a Palestinian researcher on heritage and identity, is precisely why the Israeli occupation and settlers target the olive tree so aggressively.

“The olive tree is deeply embedded in Palestinian cultural and spiritual life. It holds religious and civilisational significance for both Muslims and Christians, reaching a level of sanctity similar to that of a mosque or church,” he told MEE.

When Palestinians plant olive trees, Aqrabawi explained, they do so with the intention of passing them down to their grandchildren, a form of continuity that endures beyond death.

“That’s why they risk their lives to reach their trees. They believe a tree won’t bear fruit unless the farmer visits it and leaves his scent on it.”

According to Aqrabawi, Israel has long sought to sever this bond by targeting olive trees, especially the ancient ones, a practice that began with the occupation in 1967. 

Recently, settlers have even tried to imitate Palestinian olive harvest rituals in an attempt to present themselves as native to the land, he noted.

“But despite these efforts, they have failed to break the spiritual bond between Palestinians and the olive tree. If anything, it has only grown stronger,” he said.