Abd al-Fatah Tamimi, Photo: Reuters
Palestinian villagers wept today over the remains of their destroyed olive trees, after the Israeli army uprooted them with bulldozers, just days before the annual olive harvest, which is usually a time of joy for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Abd al-Fatah Tamimi, who has an olive grove on the land of a village near Ramallah, watched as a military bulldozer broke the top of one of his trees and then pulled its roots out of the ground.
“All of our olive trees, including those that were newly planted, were uprooted. And our neighbors’ olive trees – they all uprooted them,” Tamimi said, adding that he and his neighbors own almost 3,6 hectares of land planted with olive trees.
“They left us nothing,” he said.
The Israeli military said it was considering a Reuters request for comment but had not responded by this evening.
The military had previously stated that removing olive trees from the land was necessary to prevent security threats or ambushes on soldiers.
photo: Reuters
Palestinian human rights groups reject such reasoning, stating that by destroying olive trees, Palestinian farmers are actually depriving themselves of income from the sale of olives and olive oil, while at the same time uprooting trees that they consider a symbol of their connection to the land.
The olive harvest usually begins in the first week of October. Olives are the backbone of Palestinian agriculture, a sector that accounts for about eight percent of GDP and provides more than 60.000 jobs, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Agriculture.
Palestinian activists and farmers expect this year’s harvest to be particularly tense, due to a record increase in attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinians and Palestinian property in the territory.
Nater Tamimi, another landowner in the Deir Nizam village area, near Ramallah, said the loss of the trees was particularly painful because it happened just before the start of the harvest.
“From this land, my brothers and I produce 120 barrels of olive oil. Our neighbors produce that much as well,” Tamimi said, looking at his olive grove.
“They were uprooting trees everywhere, even between houses,” he said.
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