Abdul Latif Al Bazzari, 59, moved slowly and deliberately as he battled through pain to recount the last moments of his cousin, Ali Al Bazzari, at an olive grove in the pale green, dusty hills around the city of Nablus.
On Monday, the scattering of olive trees among which he stood was serene. Accessible through a rough dirt track, the only sign of a world outside the grove was a light breeze that travelled through the valley.
That peace was shattered last week, on October 7, when the family was subjected to the only settler attack they have faced in that area in 60 years.
“He irrigated the tree with his blood,” Mr Al Bazzari said, standing near the trunk where his relative bled to death. “It will forever be the real estate of this attack by Jewish terrorist settlers.”
His face barely showed emotion as he described the death of his cousin, a 44-year-old father of four. Perhaps it was too painful: his face was still bruised and covered in a fresh white dressing.
Mr Al Bazzari said the settlers shot at them, beat them with metal and wooden objects and threw stones. Eight people were injured, two by gunfire. One of his cousins is still in the hospital.
“They don’t want us to stay on any land, or take any of our crops. They are telling us to stay in our villages and cities, and not to go down to our trees,” he said.
Palestinian olive farmers across the Israeli-occupied West Bank are facing another harvest season marred by settler violence. Unlike last year, when the crop was poor, the weather this year has been good and the trees are full. The settlers, however, are still as violent, if not more so.
The harvest season officially begins on Thursday but the farmers have been out in their groves for weeks, fearing thefts from Israeli settlers who are posting social media campaigns encouraging people to steal their olives.
Already, two Palestinians have been killed by settlers since farmers started heading to their trees in late September, and many more injured. The entire harvest season is in danger – a major blow to the Palestinian economy, which has been significantly damaged by violence and severe restrictions in the occupied West Bank during the three years since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel.
The olive harvest is not only crucial to the economy but also symbolic of Palestinians' deep connection to the land.
“The olive groves and the harvest are the soil of the Palestinian people. This is a strategic crop," Mr Al Bazzari said. "It’s not like wheat or barley; it’s the identity of the Palestinian people. Some of the trees are more than 500 years old, hundreds of years before Israel was established.”
victim of settler attack
Farther south, in the village of Usarin, Warda Adeli, 63, was also nursing wounds from a settler attack, with her arm in a sling and stitches stretching across her bruised right cheek. She was beaten as she rushed towards family members who were ambushed by settlers in the tiny grove outside their house 10 days ago.
“I was screaming. I was scared for my son. Then they threw me to the ground and I couldn’t feel anything,” she said.
Family members said her entire body is blue with bruising. One of her sons is still in the ICU in Nablus with a severe brain injury after being beaten with a metal bar.
Another son, Ghassan Ahmed Adeli, seated next to Ms Adeli, has a broken shoulder and a back injury. He spoke on her behalf during most of the interview because she was still too weak and traumatised.
The views from their home are spectacular, but also reveal a bleak situation: vast groves in the valley that farmers have not been able to access for years because of Israeli violence. There are also new settler outposts visible, established amid the blitz of settlement construction since the Gaza war broke out.
The empty groves are a reminder of the long-term nature of the problem facing Palestinian olive cultivation under Israeli occupation. This year, however, there has been a worrying new development. The attacks on the Al Bazzari and Adeli families took place in Areas A and B, where the Palestinian Authority is supposed to have either full or partial control. In previous harvests, the attacks focused on Area C, where Israel has full security and civil occupation.
In Ms Adeli’s case, the attack actually happened inside her village, in the narrow groves and streets between the homes of this close community, which turned out in great numbers to listen to her describe her ordeal.
Some in Israel talk of there being a loss of control in the occupied West Bank, which has accelerated during the tenure of the far-right government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Palestinian olive farmers who have been attacked, as well as some of the few Israeli-Jewish activists who try to support them during the harvest, disagree.
There has never been more Israeli military and civilian power in the territory. Military vehicles are everywhere, rushing about to open and close various checkpoints and gates installed in the past few years, while settlers travel and build at will.
With Israel's general election just weeks away, there is also a heavy presence of candidates' campaign posters. Opposition candidates such as Gadi Eisenkot are visible shortly after passing the separation wall that separates East Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.
That changes deep inside the Palestinian territory, where the only posters visible are of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right members of his government, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Many of them and their supporters laud the “revolution” this government has achieved during its tenure.
For them, the unpicked Palestinian olive trees are a sign of progress; the violence inflicted on Mr Al Bazzari, Ms Adeli and many others is not something Israel has to apologise for, but to praise.
