Trying to save some olives

BETHLEHEM, West Bank, October 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Palestinian Authority's olive output, one of its most important agricultural products, was reduced by more than 80% in 2001, due to Israeli military actions against both people and groves.

Figures released by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) Friday, October 11, showed that the amount of olives pressed in the Gaza Strip and West Bank fell from 126,147 tons to 22,155 tons, according to BBC’s online news service.

October is the start of the olive picking season, but while this year’s crop is large, output is expected to be low again as Palestinians are forced, by the occupation forces, not to harvest the fruit.

"Thousands of olive trees have been wiped out by the Israelis," Professor Hasan Abu-Libdeh, head of the PCBS told BBC News Online.

"Also, olives could not be harvested because the groves were declared security zones by the Israelis and farmers were being shot at by Jewish settlers," he said.

On Sunday, October 6, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem called on the Israeli security services to protect Palestinian farmers harvesting their olives, after Jewish settlers killed a man in his fields in the West Bank.

"The security forces have not taken sufficient steps to enforce the law on settlers who used violence to prevent Palestinian farmers from harvesting their olives," the group said in a statement.

B'Tselem said it submitted an urgent appeal to Israeli army and police commanders in the West Bank "to take all steps necessary to ensure that the olive harvest in the occupied territories is carried out without disruption.

"Such steps are more urgent now than ever, as the harvest is a critical source of income for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian residents, who are already suffering from very difficult economic conditions," it added.

Victims of olive picking

Israel has reoccupied almost the entire West Bank since June as it searches for militant groups, keeping around 800,000 Palestinian residents under regular curfew and tight restrictions.

The appeal was issued after a group of settlers shot dead Hani Mustapha, 24, as he was working in his field in Akrabeh village, 10 kilometers (six miles) south of the city of Nablus.

The settlers also injured another farmer with their gunfire.

In September, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) annual report on the occupied territories said that the Palestinian economy was experiencing "de-development".

The Palestinian economy is regularly disrupted by roadblocks, curfews, bulldozing of homes and farms, destruction of wells and confiscation of land to build new (illegal) Jewish settlements, in violation of international law.

UNCTAD found that since October 2000, when the Intifada began, gross domestic product had fallen by more than half, unemployment had tripled and more than two-thirds of households were living below the poverty line.

Olive groves along most of the road networks have been declared security zones, preventing farmers from tending their crops.

The PCBS statistics also show the number of operational olive presses fell by 20% in 2001 to 194, less than half the number of ten years ago.

"Some of these presses are located in areas difficult to reach and some owners were not able to maintain them because of import restrictions," Abu-Libdeh said.

While olives are not a major export earner for the Palestinian Authority, it is considered a strategic crop because of the widespread use for food.

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