Israeli settlers take Palestinian olives, and their harvest traditions

Ramallah, occupied West Bank – The video shared in Israeli settler groups shows two men bashing an olive tree with long wooden sticks. Smiling and congratulating one another, they try to knock the olives to the ground. They call the result “Pure Olive Oil”.

But as Palestinian activist Bashar Qaryouti explained, the two men don’t own the land, the trees, or the olives.

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They’re Israeli settlers who set up an illegal settlement outpost on private property in the village of Qaryut, in the northern occupied West Bank, and made their way into this olive grove, some 200 metres (656 feet) away from Palestinian homes.

“No one has come near here for about three years, thank God,” one of the two men in the video says in Hebrew.

Local Palestinians know the man by name, and he does little to hide. The man is Avichai Suissa, an Israeli settler sanctioned by the European Union, United Kingdom – and previously by the United States – who runs a farm on the outpost. It was established more than a year and a half ago, and videos like this help Suissa raise donations for it.

On his campaign page, he says the goal is to rebuild and expand the farm, which was once dismantled by the Israeli army, to prevent it from falling “into enemy hands”.

“We’re gradually starting to work our way into the area,” Suissa said in the video.

But the land belongs to Palestinians – residents of Qaryut – who have not been able to reach it since the genocidal war on Gaza began in October 2023. “A few months ago, farmers tried to plough their land, but the army stopped them,” Qaryouti said.

Worst year yet

“After we complained, the army declared the area a closed military zone a few days ago, so settlers are going to other lands, to other olives to steal,” Qaryouti explained.

Suissa and others are part of a growing movement of settlers who have intensified their campaign against the olive harvest. The campaign, part of a settler pogrom against Palestinians in the West Bank, has turned the olive harvest season in October into a source of fear and danger.

Many Palestinians in the occupied West Bank describe this year as the worst yet in terms of settler attacks, and the season has barely started.

On Wednesday, armed Israeli settlers on tractors raided lands between the villages of Ramin and Burqa, in the northern occupied West Bank. They opened fire on farmers heading to their trees.

Ali Bazzari, a 44-year-old farmer, was killed. His only “crime”, the family says, was trying to pick his olives.

Witnesses say the Israeli army prevented ambulances from reaching the wounded. Palestinians had to carry the injured through the mountains to hospitals.

The Israeli Rights Group Yesh Din says it documented 109 incidents of violence directly related to the harvest in 75 Palestinian communities between September 27 and October 6, an average of 11 per day.

Longtime tradition

Israeli settlers are increasingly attempting to adopt the rituals of the olive harvest season, while pushing out the Palestinians who have kept those traditions for generations.

Several new farms have been set up in the occupied West Bank. One shares videos of olives being pressed. Others invite Israelis to “join in” the experience.

Palestinians say the videos circulating show a disregard for the actual owners of the land taken by the settlers, and a clear attempt to appropriate the season, imitating its rituals and claiming them as their own.

Those rituals – things like collective picking, singing, and shared meals on the farms – are rooted in a deep connection to the land.

The olive harvest season may be an exhausting time of the year for Palestinians, with its hard work and long hours in the sun, but it’s a rewarding one. Olive farmers traditionally gather for family get-togethers, with neighbours and friends volunteering to help one another harvest the olives, in a cultural tradition known as “ouneh”.

The season has a light-hearted element, with debates about whose land produces the best oil, who should charge the most, and who knows how to pick the most olives and not drop any to the ground.

Older generations pass down lessons from history, such as the best time to harvest and how to nurture the trees – an inherited knowledge of climate, agriculture and the land itself.

“They planted so that we can eat. We plant so they [will] eat,” a well-known Arabic saying goes. It highlights the continuity of this inheritance, and the responsibility towards future generations.

Last harvest?

These trees, which are meant to be protected, nurtured and passed on, are being taken away – not only by settlers, but by soldiers, too.

Hazem Sanaf, 61, stood on a nearby hill in the village of Beit Rima and watched as Israeli bulldozers ploughed through his lands in late September, after he had received an Israeli military order. The bulldozers destroyed and uprooted more than 400 trees belonging to Hazem and his neighbour, some of them decades old, and his only source of income.

“They just want to take our olive trees from us,” he said, his eyes reflecting his pain.

Hazem is not alone. Several Israeli military orders to uproot olive trees have been handed out across the occupied West Bank. Some have been carried out, while others await their turn.

In the past, the Israeli military has cited the need to clear land of trees to prevent security threats or ambushes on troops. But Palestinians say it reflects a pattern of dispossession and impoverishment.

According to the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC), Israeli settlers and soldiers have destroyed approximately 50,000 trees this year alone.

Fuad Daraghmeh, from the village of al-Lubban Asharqiya, near Ramallah, carried the thick, broken stem of a tree.

“I took care of it for 30 years,” he said, and headed home. He did not say what he planned to do with the stem, but others said that their trees had been uprooted before, and that they had managed to nourish them back to life.

Others are resigned to saying goodbye to the trees. They sit by the bulldozed trees with small hand tools, picking the last fruit of what they believe is their last crop.

Palestinians have been watching videos of settlers harvesting their olive trees, including the one shared by Suissa.

Beyond the pain, one remark keeps coming up: the method used by Suissa in vigorously beating the tree is no way to treat it, and no way to harvest olives.

“The people who have tended to their lands for decades know that,” one Palestinian activist, who did not wish to be identified for security reasons, said.