Global News BlogPalestinian olive harvest plows on, despite tension with settlers
The annual Palestinian olive harvest dates to antiquity and continues today much the way it has for centuries – although in recent years, the presence of settlers has made the harvest more challenging.
Nada Salah harvests olives in the West Bank. Josh Mitnick• A local, slice-of-life story from a Monitor correspondent.
As fall progresses, a heavy patter can be heard amid the terraced hills of the West Bank. It is raining olives again in the Levant, as Palestinian villagers embark on the annual harvest that lasts through November.
Families spend entire days together on ladders, stroking and tapping olive branches to release their fruit. The bounty gathered up in plastic tarps underneath is loaded on wagons to local village olive presses, where oil is extracted.
The harvest dates to antiquity, and scattered across the region are stone presses from biblical periods. With their shriveled bark and twisted branches, the trees cut a distinctive silhouette on the hillsides. Some have survived for hundreds of years....READ MORE
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