No olive branch

Despite the economic hardship and physical threats from the Israeli settlers and army, Abdullah Abu Awad refuses to leave his family land. — Photos: Los Angeles Times/TNS

ABDULLAH Abu Awad, from Turmus Ayya, first harvested his family’s olive grove decades ago with his father and grandfather. He knows the trees as well as he knows his own children.

But he hesitated before driving across the field one morning in December, unsure what the nearby Israeli settlers might do. The settlement of Shilo sits just beyond the fence of his 12-acre (48562.3 square metre) property.