Under the Tears of Olive Groves
The olive groves flourishing in the lands surrounding Nablus, Ramallah, and Hebron mark centuries of Palestinian tradition, rooted in the principles of subsistence and reciprocity.
With the lifetime of a single olive tree spanning the equivalent of many human generations, the fruits of these groves have grown and died alongside the people who tend them and wept in parallel with those who mourn a history punctuated by occupation and oppression — they are both a source of economic viability and a symbol of everything lost and still hoped for.
But now, as the olive trees stand ripe with fruit for harvest, the Palestinian people are once again under attack from Israeli settlers seeking to usurp indigenous Palestinian land and erase the culture that takes root in it.
Since the beginning of the formal harvest season on October 12, much like years prior, Israeli settlers who illegally occupy land neighbouring Palestinian villages within the West Bank have violently beaten Palestinian farmers tending to their olives groves, stolen crops intended to support the livelihoods of Palestinian families, and destroyed hundreds of Palestinian-owned olive trees and early saplings.
And attacks have been growing in intensity since the harvest season started.
