THE families had only just begun harvesting olives when the attack started. Clad in black and carrying metal batons and guns, Israeli settlers appeared without warning.
Ilham Al-Bazari, one of the Palestinian farmers, froze. It was too late to run, she said.
Her husband was shot in the leg while settlers attacked her teenage nephew.
Believing they might spare a 50-year-old woman, Al-Bazari said she threw herself on top of her nephew to protect him. Instead, they broke her arm.
Her cousin, Ali Al-Bazari, an off-duty captain in the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, raced to help but was shot in the back by a settler.
The Israeli military arrived shortly afterwards, Ilham Al-Bazari and other witnesses said, as her cousin lay dying on the ground.
“We called on the soldiers to allow an ambulance,” she said. “But they refused.”
Ali Al-Bazari, 44, died on Oct 7, the first person killed during this year’s harvest – the most violent olive season in recent history, with weeks still to go.
The violence this harvest season reflects the turmoil upending Palestinian life in the Israeli-occupied West Bank since the Palestinian resistance group Hamas-led attacks of Oct 7, 2023.
As Israel assaulted the Gaza Strip, settler expansion in the West Bank accelerated sharply.
Extremist settlers – Jewish Israelis living in territory occupied by Israel during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war – have increasingly sought to drive Palestinians off their land through intimidation and force.
Each year, the olive harvest has grown more tense, but it remains an important social and economic tradition for Palestinians.
Families gather in the groves, brewing coffee over open fires as several generations pick olives together.
As many as 100,000 families depend on income from the harvest, which typically runs from mid-October to mid-November, Palestinian officials say.
Settlers have set trees ablaze, shot farmers and beaten men, women and children. On Oct 23, Palestinian gunmen opened fire on Israelis; the Israeli military said two soldiers and two Palestinian were killed.
In at least three instances – in the villages of Khirbet Abu Falah, Turmus Ayya and Deir Abu Masha’al – soldiers stood by as settlers prevented Palestinians from harvesting their olives.
The Israeli government has vigorously backed settlers seeking to redraw the map of the West Bank. It has also allowed extremist settlers to operate with near impunity, even as violence has soared.
Entire communities have been emptied, their residents driven out by marauding settlers who have established more than 100 outposts over the past three years, rarely facing intervention from Israeli troops.
Three Palestinians have been killed in recent weeks, including one during the olive harvest, while many others have been wounded and trees destroyed.
A series of exceptionally brazen attacks have drawn condemnation from United States and other officials, some of whom have described them as acts of terrorism.
In one recent incident, settlers assaulted European officials visiting a Christian village. In another, they badly beat a 63-year-old photojournalist from The Washington Post, breaking two of her ribs and fracturing several vertebrae.
Military operations have also intensified in the West Bank.
In many cases, soldiers appear to protect fellow Israelis while detaining Palestinians who come under attack.
“The season is not starting off well,” said Ramez Obeid, head of the Palestinian Agriculture Ministry’s olives department. “We estimate 50% of the land will be inaccessible.”
Precision attacks
The attacks often follow a recognisable pattern and are carried out with precision, according to Palestinian accounts.
Settlers have claimed the high ground across much of the West Bank, establishing encampments above olive groves that terrace the limestone hillsides.
From below, farmers can see settlers preparing for attacks, usually dressed in black hoodies and masks and armed with rifles and other weapons.
They descend quickly, sometimes on foot, fanning out across the groves and taking cover among the trees. In other cases, they speed down roads into the lower ground.
That was what happened in Khirbet Abu Falah on Oct 23, when 50 or 60 settlers laid siege to farmers harvesting their crops before a group assaulted the veteran Washington Post photographer.
Where possible, Palestinian lookouts climb unclaimed hillsides to warn neighbouring communities of approaching attacks.
Without them, farmers would have little chance of escaping before settlers come storming down, as happened to Ali Al-Bazari.
Under Israeli law, Palestinian villagers cannot carry arms. Even throwing stones at settlers could land them in prison, leaving many with little choice but to flee their own land. — ©2026 The New York Times Company
This article originally appeared in The New York Times
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