How settler violence is destroying the West Bank’s olive harvest
Israeli soldiers guard a newly-established settler outpost in the middle of Palestinian olive groves in Beit Lid, November 2025
Kate McMahon reports in The New Arab on 5 November 2025:
Midway through this year’s olive harvest in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian farmers are suffering a wave of attacks carried out by Israeli settlers and Israel’s military, marking one of the most violent seasons on record.
At least 259 attacks against Palestinian farmers have been recorded since the harvest season began in October, the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC) says.
CWRC documented 41 attacks committed by the Israeli army and 218 attacks by settlers, who have been emboldened by the war in Gaza and political momentum to officially annex the West Bank.
“The attacks are worse than ever,” Abdallah Abu Rahma, Commissioner of the CWRC, told The New Arab. “Since the war on Gaza began, the settlers feel they can do anything. They attack every day – burning cars, stealing olives, beating farmers – and the army protects them. They’re trying to separate farmers from the land, so the settlers can take it.”
With the international community distracted by the precarious ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli plans to seize the West Bank are intensifying, with the Knesset voting on the first of four bills needed to formally annex the territory under Israeli occupation since 1967, considered illegal by the United Nations and the majority of states.