West Bank olive harvest brings a surge in settler attacks and crop theft

What happened

For Palestinian farmers, this year’s olive harvest has become a test of whether they can reach and protect trees tended by their families for generations. Farmers, Israeli rights groups and the United Nations say attacks have risen sharply, while olives are increasingly being taken from groves and transported to settler outposts for pressing.

Ahmed Salem told Reuters that settlers struck his trees with sticks, collected the olives and carried them to a nearby outpost. He said he feared intervening. In another incident, farmer Samer Ben Shamsi said masked settlers attacked him near Nablus on October 9 and drove away with his harvest after he and other farmers fled.

Israeli rights group Yesh Din reported 125 physical attacks on Palestinian harvesters and 168 crop-theft incidents during the first 24 days of the season. Israeli military forces were present in at least a quarter of the reported cases, according to the group. The military said it takes violence and criminal activity seriously but did not directly address the theft allegations.

Access is also a central issue. Palestinians say military restrictions around settlements and outposts prevent them from reaching many groves, while settlers can move freely. Reuters described land around Salem’s village that residents say was fenced off or seized between 2023 and 2026, followed by settler harvesting and promotion of an outpost olive press.

Israeli officials reject the characterization of the olives as theft and say Jews own and cultivate millions of trees in the area. Most countries and U.N. bodies regard Israeli settlements in occupied territory as illegal under international law; Israel rejects that legal position and calls the territory disputed. The competing claims are now being played out around a harvest that is both livelihood and identity.

Image: EC/ECHO / Fadwa Baroud AbedRabo, CC BY-ND 2.0. Olive Harvesting in Palestine: the olive-producing community of Burin in the Nablus area during an October 22, 2013 humanitarian field visit. Archival geographic file photo, not the current attacks. The complete photograph is proportionally scaled inside a 16:9 letterbox without cropping or creative alteration. Image usage terms.

Sources

• Reuters
• yesh-din.org