Olive harvest season in the West Bank, October 2025. UN sounds alarm as violence rises during olive harvest season in West Bank Peace and Security
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in the Occupied Palestinian Territory has warned of an alarming increase in violence by Israeli settlers and security forces against Palestinian farmers as the olive harvest season begins in the West. shore.
In the first half of 2025, there were 757 recorded attacks by Israeli settlers resulting in loss of life or property. That’s up 13 percent from the same period last year.
“Just two weeks into the harvest, we have witnessed brutal attacks by armed settlers on Palestinian men, women, children and foreign activists expressing solidarity with them,” the head of the OHCHR office said Wednesday in the occupied Palestinian territory of Ajit Sungai.
Crop loss, land destruction
According to OHCHR, in the 2023 harvest season, about 9,600 hectares of olive plantations were left uncultivated, causing Palestinian farmers to lose more than $10 million. This trend continued in 2024.
“Direct land destruction is intensifying,” Sungai stressed. “Settlers are burning plantations, cutting down olive trees with chainsaws, destroying homes and agricultural infrastructure.”
Since October 2023, more than a thousand Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or settlers in the West Bank, according to the UN. Thousands of families have been forced to flee their homes due to attacks, restrictions on movement and demolitions.
The Economic Foundation of Rural Communities
“The olive tree here is not just a tree,” Sungai noted. “It’s about livelihoods and ancestral traditions, resilience and economics, and the historical thread that binds Palestinians to the land.”
About a hundred thousand Palestinian families depend on the olive harvest for their livelihood, he said. As such, these plantations represent the “economic foundation of rural communities.” coast.
He recalled that Israel is “legally obligated to end the occupation and reverse the annexation,” and called on UN member states to apply maximum pressure to protect civilians and bring to justice those responsible for “decades of violations.”