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| Mahmud Hassan, the mayor of As-Sawiya, pointing to inaccessible olive groves. Photograph: Jason Burke/The Guardian |
Mon 3 Nov 2025 05.53 EST
Around As-Sawiya, rolling hills covered in fields and orchards rise to a horizon sharp against a pristine blue sky. It is a stunning view. But look closer and it becomes clear why the few thousand residents of this small town in the north of the Israeli-occupied West Bank say they are under siege – and why the olives are still heavy on the trees two weeks after the official date of the beginning of the annual harvest.
From the highest point in As-Sawiya, Mahmud Hassan, the mayor, points out the olive orchards on the other side of the highway below the town. They lie on land owned by local families but are now impossible to reach without risking a potentially fatal clash with Israeli settlers who live in settlements around the town, or with Israeli security forces, he says. In all, about 70% of the town’s olives are currently inaccessible.
“Our olives are everything for us: the backbone of our economy, in our homes, on our tables, in our culture. These last years have brought nothing but misery to us,” says Hassan, 68.
The situation is the same across much of the West Bank. Since the beginning of October, the Palestinian Farmers’ Union (PFU) has logged more than 50 incidents of violence or destruction.
The UN has recorded more: 86 olive harvest-related settler attacks resulting in casualties, property damage or both, including several incidents reported in the days before the official start of the season on 9 October. More than 3,000 trees and saplings have been damaged and 112 Palestinians injured, including 50 by settlers.
“Incidents entailed attacks on farmers inside or on their way to olive groves, theft of crops and harvesting equipment, and vandalism of olive trees,” the UN said. “In total, 50 villages and towns have been affected,” an increase on last year’s harvest when there were 80 incidents in 48 villages and towns that led to the injury of 50 Palestinians.
Records kept by the PFU show incidents of violence have soared fourfold, from three or four daily before the war in Gaza. The most recent attacks are “not random, but deliberate efforts to undermine Palestinian rural life”, the PFU said in a statement.
The Israeli settlers in the West Bank are supported by far-right ministers, part of the country’s ruling coalition, the most rightwing in Israel’s history. Last month, a bill introduced by far-right lawmakers applying Israeli law to the West Bank, a move tantamount to annexation... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/03/olives-settler-violence-west-bank-farmers