The olive harvest, a mainstay of the Palestinian economy, has been plagued by Israeli settler violence towards peaceful Palestinian farmers wishing to pick their produce. Over the past three years, with the resurgence of hostilities, the farmers have found it increasingly more difficult to care for their land in the face of threats, humiliation and beatings, but coupled with the Separation Wall being built on the most fertile Palestinian land, the task has simply become impossible.
In recent years, the Israeli settlers, backed by the government, have justified their attacks as ‘self defense’ needed to secure what they say is their God-given right to land that has been farmed by Palestinians for generations. Thus, in the Palestinian village of Ein Abus, about 3 miles south of Nablus, settlers from the Mitzpe Yitzhar outpost had destroyed all of the 255 trees on Fauzi Hassan Mohammed Hussein’s hillside orchard, leaving him with no means to support his family. Not a single olive was left in sight on any of the branches.
The Shawkat family lost 200 olive trees in the same way just before the 2002 harvest, rather than launching an investigation the Israeli police and army soldiers deployed at the Mitzpe Yitzhar outpost forced the distraught family from the orchard because "they were causing a disturbance." Mitzpe Yitzhar, one of the 120 illegal Israeli outposts in the West Bank slated for destruction under the "road map" to peace, along with the larger settlement of Yitzhar, one of the most aggressive and ideological of the settlements, that surround the village of Ein Abus have been the source of numerous complaints of Jewish violence against Palestinians.
Since 2001, Palestinians have lodged 548 complaints against settlers, sighting routine beatings, attempted murder and destruction of property. However, the Israeli authorities have been more than reluctant to investigate as only 85 of these incidents, some of which have resulted in hospitalization and death, have lead to formal police investigations. Despite the undeniable occurrence of such criminal action, no Israeli settler has ever been arrested and charged.
Palestinian farmers in the West Bank regions of Jenin, Qalqilya and Nablus have endured the most, as their farmland is destroyed by both settlers and the construction of the Separation Wall. The Israeli military has not only destroyed thousands of trees in order to build the Wall, they have also severely restricted access to the remaining agricultural lands that fall on the wrong side of the barrier, spoiling the vast majority of the olive harvest in the northern West Bank that farmers rely on as their lifeline.
The completed northern section of the Separation Wall has 41 gates for farmers, but most of the gates remain closed and many Palestinians have been denied access by Israeli soldiers through the ones that are ‘open.’ The Wall has cut off 75 per cent of the 1,200 hectares farmed by the people of Jayous, a hilltop village near northern West Bank town of Qalqilya. The village has 120 greenhouses, 15,000 olive trees and 50,000 citrus trees now behind the Israeli barrier. Moreover, Jayous farmers say their chronic water shortages have worsened because six important wells also lie on the wrong side of the fence.
For weeks on end during the pivotal olive harvest season the gates have been closed, no exceptions. Palestinian farmers that have been refused access to cross the gates scattered across the Separation Wall were informed by Israeli soldiers that they need either special permits or luck. When the gates are opened, only a very limited number of farmers with permits were allowed to pass, subject to the satisfaction of further varied conditions such as age and marital status.
The Israeli military says farmers can get permits if they apply several hours in advance and pose no security risk. Yet, the permits issued often provide the farmers with only two days worth of work on their land that has been annexed to the Israeli side of the Wall. Further, permits place farmers in a serious dilemma because if they do get them, then they are recognizing Israel's authority over their land, and yet without them they will not be able to farm unless they sneak through at the risk of severe punishment should they be caught.
In Jayyous, near Qalqilya, 60 people, including women and children, were detained by the Israeli military and not allowed to cross back into the village after a day of olive harvesting on their land. The Israeli soldiers saw someone jump over the fence earlier in the day and were holding all 60 people at the gate until they were told the person's identity. When the soldiers detained the suspected fence-hopper; the 60 farmers were kept for a further four hours as a measure of collective punishment and then were allowed to go home.
Even with a permit, the Israeli soldiers manning the gates have complete discretion whether or not to open the gate to let the farmers go through or comeback and have tended to open them at random intervals for only a few minutes at a time. In the village of Awarta, near Nablus, farmers were denied passage into their own olive groves by the Israeli troops despite previous written assurances from the Israeli Military District Coordination Office (DCO) that harvesting would be permitted. Moreover, farmers attempting to pass through the gates in tractors or other vehicles have been turned away. Women have complained of sexual harassment and threats of rape.
To make matters even worse, Palestinian farmers living in proximity to Israel's Separation Wall received an order signed by Major General Moshe Kaplinski, commander of Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, declaring that their lands lying between the barrier and the border with Israel had been classified as "a closed military zone" open only to Jews and citizens of Israel. All others, including the people who live there, must apply for special permits from the Israeli army. According to a report prepared by the World Bank, the order will directly affect 95,000 Palestinians living within the "closed military zone" and another 20,000 living to the east of the Wall, who will be separated from their livelihoods and relatives. By the end of next year, at least 210,000 Palestinians are expected to be subject to similar orders.
Despite the insurmountable conditions Palestinian farmers have been placed in, they have shown remarkable resilience. Knowing the dangers that await them, in what otherwise used to be an enjoyable and profitable harvest season; Palestinian farmers still get up at the break of dawn in the hope that they would find a way to pick what remains of their olive groves.
