The Abu Fikhaida family ventures out to their farmland to harvest olives and Israeli settlers exact violence.
On Saturday afternoon, a group of settlers attacked the Abu Fikhaida family from al-Janiya village with stones as they harvested olives near Talmon settlement, west of Ramallah District.
Three farmers from the Abu Fikhaida family were wounded and taken to Ramallah hospital. Jaber Barakat Abu Fikhaida was critically injured on his head. Hussein Barakat and Mohammed Ahmed Abu Fikhaida sustained moderate injuries.
The settlers that attacked the family hail form Talmon settlement, which is built expropriated al-Janiya land. The attack forced the family to at least temporarily abandon their olives, trees and land.
But, Palestinians from al-Janiya already must secure special permission from the Israeli military to access over 73 hectares of their agricultural land. Israeli authorities typically grant al-Janiya residents access to it for just a few weeks a year.
As yesterday’s attack demonstrates, when Palestinian families take advantage of this wrongly rare opportunity, Israeli settlers can – and do – violently end the olive harvest.
There is practically no recourse for such settler attacks. Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din determined that a police complaint filed by a Palestinian in the West Bank has a mere 1.9% chance of being effectively investigated. Moreover, Israeli soldiers in the West Bank threaten, expel, and arrest Palestinians harvesting olives too.
In light of the dangerous situation, each year hundreds of solidarity activists travel to Palestine for the harvest season to assist with the physical work of picking olives as well as documenting and resisting Israeli violence.
The olive oil harvest is significant economic, social, and cultural event in Palestine. Nearly half of all cultivated land in the occupied Palestinian territories is planted with olives. The olive oil industry constitutes 25% of Palestine’s agricultural income and supports the livelihoods of approximately 100,000 Palestinian families.
