An olive branch may signify peace, but not for many Palestinians who have been harvesting the crop in recent weeks.
On Monday, a 55-year-old Palestinian woman was taken to hospital after being beaten over the head by a masked Israeli settler while she was picking olives.
Video footage of the attack shows the man striking her unconscious with a stick before hitting her again as she lay motionless on the ground.
The unprovoked attack, which took place on Sunday morning in the Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya in the occupied West Bank, was captured on video by US journalist Jasper Nathaniel.
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The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the confrontation was dispersed after its forces arrived and that it “strongly condemns any form of violence” in the West Bank by settlers.
Mr Nathaniel rejected this account, saying no Israeli forces showed up to the attack “at any point”.
He said Israeli soldiers had been on site before the attack and had led him and others into an “ambush”.
“I’ve seen a lot of settler and soldier violence in the West Bank, but this was unique,” Mr Nathaniel told The Irish Times.
“I’ve never seen so many settlers taking part in a co-ordinated attack before ... The man who clubbed that woman, it was the single most heinous act of violence I’ve ever witnessed.”
[ ‘This land is wonderful for wine’: Israeli settlers strengthen grip on West BankOpens in new window ]
Israeli settlers have mounted more than 160 assaults against West Bank Palestinian farmers gathering their olives since the harvest season began this month, according to an office in the Palestinian Authority that is tracking the violence.
Some 17 attacks were conducted by the Israeli army and 141 by settlers who are deemed illegal under international law. These incidents involved beatings, arrests, restrictions on movement, denial of access, harassment, firing of weapons and the destruction of nearly 800 olive trees.
For Palestinians, olive trees are not only a source of food and revenue but a demonstration of “samud” or steadfastness: connection to their land, assertion of identity and peaceful resistance to efforts to drive them from their homeland.
Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Palestinian territory, said this week that settler violence has “skyrocketed in scale and frequency”.
“Two weeks into the start of the 2025 harvest, we have already seen severe attacks by armed settlers against Palestinian men, women, children and foreign solidarity activists,” he said in a statement.
He said settlers have “burnt groves, chain-sawed olive trees and destroyed homes and agricultural infrastructure. New Israeli checkpoints and iron gates separated farmers from their farms, sometimes keeping farmers away until their crops failed.”
The harvest season has become an existential struggle for up to 100,000 rural Palestinian families who depend on olives and olive oil for their livelihoods.
While most West Bank output is locally consumed, olive oil is a key source of revenue. In 2023, $10.9 million worth of virgin olive oil was sold abroad, making it Palestine’s third most exported product.
Olive plantations cover nearly 45 per cent of cultivated land in Palestine and olives are the biggest single crop in Palestine’s mainly agricultural economy, which amounts to 25 per cent of GDP.
