‘Rooted in this land until death’: A Palestinian family’s olive harvest

Umm Safa, Occupied West Bank – Six-year-old Nasser Tanatra is scared of the rock-strewn hilltop where he used to play and pick flowers near his family home.

The boisterous child, the youngest of seven siblings, used to dash to the top of Jabal al-Ras with his 10-year-old sister Urood to gather wild sage and zaatar.

But in mid-September, about 20 Israeli settlers, protected by soldiers, erected tents and began living on the hilltop, about 50 metres (164ft) from the family’s two-storey home.

Ever since, they have attacked and harassed the Tanatras and their neighbours in the Palestinian village of Umm Safa. At night the settlers fire bullets into the air and release aggressive dogs to roam outside villagers’ homes. From above, they flash bright lights onto the houses, blare music and sing loudly.

But the worst incident for the Tanatras occurred soon after the new settlers arrived.

The family was watching the evening news when soldiers launched tear gas and settlers shot live bullets towards their home. Although nobody was injured, during the more than hour-long attack, a terrified Nasser slipped away from his family in panic and darted outside. He then ran under gunfire to his grandmother’s house 100 metres (328ft) away. He has been traumatised ever since.

“He says, ‘Mama, I am scared to leave the house. I am scared to sleep. I am not hungry. I am scared to go outside. I am scared to go to school,’” explained Nasser’s mother, Manal Tanatra, 40, with a frown, as she helped a neighbour gather olives in late October.

“This isn’t a life. It isn’t. Our house, our land, we are surrounded and strangled and attacked, and even to harvest our olives is a danger.”

The annual olive harvest season in October and November is a time when Umm Safa’s families come together to pick olives from the same trees their ancestors cultivated. But the arrival of the outpost and the increasing settler violence have made harvesting an activity fraught with danger, and the villagers can never be sure how a day in the groves will unfold.

In past seasons, Nasser accompanied Manal to the groves to play. Since the attack, he has barely left home.

‘During the day, we are strong’

Umm Safa, a village of several hundred people about 12km (7.5 miles) north of Ramallah, sits on a hillside above terraces of olive trees.

Since Israel’s war on Gaza started in October 2023, the villagers, like other Palestinians across Area C – the 60 percent of the occupied West Bank under full Israeli military control – have endured escalating restrictions from the Israeli military and attacks from settlers.

In normal times, the Tanatra family home is alive with the conversations and laughter of Nasser and his six older sisters, aged between 10 and 20. The family would play games together or, on special occasions, grill chicken or kebab outside.

These days, the house is quieter. The two eldest daughters, students at nearby Birzeit University, often stay on campus, due in part to the dangers on the roads from settlers and newly erected checkpoints where villagers describe being detained and even hit by soldiers.

Manal’s husband Saher used to work as a construction labourer in Israel and made about 6,000 shekels ($1,650) a month. The 50-year-old would go to work and return home each day for the sunset prayer. After the war started, Saher, like other Palestinian labourers from the occupied West Bank, had his permit to enter and work inside Israel revoked. He now hustles to make ends meet, braving road closures, settler attacks and military checkpoints to provide for the family of nine as a taxi driver in Ramallah. He earns far less than he used to.

“The work is very light in the taxi,” said Saher. “Each day, I might get only 50 shekels ($14). But 50 shekels a day is better than nothing.”

These days, he is lucky to return home at all, and often stays in Birzeit with his oldest children due to the precarious conditions. When he does make it home, he parks his taxi a distance away from the house and the outpost above them to try to keep it safe.

After it gets dark, nobody in the family – or the village – dares to step outside, fearful that soldiers may carry out arrest raids or that the settlers may attack.

“During the day, we are strong, we are together,” said Manal as she took a break from olive picking. “But in the night, we are all hidden in our homes, messaging each other, sleepless, fearful and worried about the violence that is waiting for us outside.”

Systematic violence

Located between the illegal Israeli settlements of Halamish and Ateret, the people of Umm Safa have endured stone-throwing and land grabs by settlers for years.

Then, after the 32-year-old Israeli settler Zvi Bar Yosef established his first outpost, Zvi’s Farm, in the area in 2019, attacks against Palestinians escalated, often instigated by settlers grazing their herds on land belonging to the villages of Jibiya, Kobar, and Umm Safa. Villagers in the area report being assaulted by Bar Yosef and other settlers, at various times having teeth knocked out or being tied up, according to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. In 2020, Naji Tanatra, a distant cousin of Saher’s, survived a skull fracture from being attacked by several settlers after he tried to drive Bar Yosef’s livestock from private Palestinian groves in Umm Safa.

Bar Yosef’s encroachment on Umm Safa escalated in the summer of 2023 when he set up a new outpost as a grazing area near olive groves just below the village’s main street. After meeting resistance from villagers, dozens of settlers from the nearby settlements and outposts stormed through the village, setting homes and cars on fire.

In July 2023, Israeli forces in separate incidents killed two villagers, Muhammad Bayed, 16, and ‘Abd al-Jawad Dar Saleh, 24, amid demonstrations against the settler takeover of village land.

The pressure intensified in the past year after the Israeli military erected further checkpoints nearby and blocked the two main village entrances with iron gates and mounds of dirt, leaving only a single, circuitous route through adjacent villages for cars to enter and leave.

Then, beginning in September, Bar Yosef – internationally sanctioned this year for inflicting violence on Palestinians and preventing them from accessing their land – established the outpost on Jabal al-Ras. It includes two tents and a barn for his sheep and goats. Bulldozers operated by settlers spent weeks creating a road for the outpost before the settlers moved in.

The outpost also affects the children who attend the local school, near the Tanatra home. Marwan Sabah, head of the Umm Safa village council, described how settlers shout and stare at children as they make their way to and from school. In October, according to Sabah, settlers shot at schoolchildren who were taking a break from class one morning, after which the school sent the children home.

Bar Yosef did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

Settler outposts take different forms. Some have mobile homes, others tents. Shepherding outposts, like the ones run by Bar Yosef, are a recent tactic that enables settlers to take as much land as possible with only a small number of people. Although illegal under Israeli and international law, outposts are in practice provided with round-the-clock military security. They are widely understood to be part of a larger effort by settlers and – through demolitions, land policies and financial and security support of settlers – the state to drive Palestinians out of lands in Area C and create contiguity between the settlements, rendering any future Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank impossible.

‘Baba and I are here to protect you’

On a sunny day in late October, a week after Manal helped her neighbour pick olives, she and her daughter, 18-year-old Nagham, a physical therapy student, harvested olives on their family land. Manal’s sister-in-law, Abla, 37, and her mother-in-law, Kifah, 61, worked on a terrace above them.

At noon, Abla and Kifah climbed down to share a lunch of fresh vegetables, labneh, olives, bread and homemade olive oil with Manal and Nagham under the shade of a tree.

The four women were harvesting the 15 dunams (1.5 hectares) and 150 olive trees that have been in the family since Saher’s great-grandfather came to Umm Safa. He was violently expelled from his village of Tantura during the Nakba, or catastrophe, in 1948 when Zionist troops forced at least 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands.

“Though Umm Safa is a small area, it’s filled with horror,” said Abla. “Filled with horror. You have the settlements of Ateret, Halamish; Jabal Al-Ras is now a horrifying military zone.

“Everything is enclosed around us, and no one can come to the rescue no matter what happens.”

Since the outpost was established, Manal and her children nervously check the windows at night, watching for signs of the next attack. Often, they are the ones being watched.

“When I come to the house, [the settlers] watch me,” said Manal. “When I leave the house, they watch me. When we get in the car, we just look forward and drive straight – straight! And pray to God to keep us safe.”

In recent months, in addition to the shooting, settlers have stolen and killed livestock; thrown rocks at homes; destroyed water pipes, solar panels, fences and olive trees; and torched cars. Saher once had to rush to move his taxi before settlers could set it on fire. On the evening of December 1, settlers attacked villagers as they laid down a water line. They fired live bullets while soldiers with the Israeli army fired tear gas at people.

Meanwhile, military arrest raids are “continuous” according to Sabah, the village council head. He says they are designed to intimidate. “The purpose is to accept the new reality of settlers,” he explained, adding that two villagers are currently imprisoned.

People in the village now take turns to keep watch at night, letting others know about any incursions via WhatsApp.

Manal and Saher sometimes hear whimpers and cries from the rooms of their youngest children. The barking of the settlers’ dogs often keeps them awake at night but when they do sleep, they have nightmares about the settlers attacking.

“Don’t worry, Nasser,” Manal tells her son as she cradles him in her arms. “Baba and I are here to protect you. They won’t come back. You are safe.

“In front of the settlers, I try not to show fear,” Manal said. “But at home, at night, when I hold my children – I am afraid.”

‘They never stop’

Sabah has spent this olive harvest season in the fields, on one phone call after another, coordinating movements among nervous villagers.

He says the harvest season is a cherished custom – “part of our love and passion for the land”.

“We used to stay up late until the evening while we were harvesting the olives together,” Sabah explained. “But now, we live in a state of fear and terror.”

This year, Sabah says men go to harvest in tense groups while women and children have mostly stayed away from the fields.

The yearlong closure by the Israeli military of the two main village entrances has largely forced people to go to their olive groves by foot or by donkey, making harvesting more difficult and dangerous. According to Sabah, army restrictions and settler harassment prevented some families from reaching their groves and completing their harvest – an economic lifeline for many who rely on the income from selling olive oil.

But the women in the Tanatra household and others from the wider family were determined to proceed with their harvest, despite the intimidation and attacks. One morning, Manal and Nagham wound effortlessly through the thick, thorny brush to reach their olive trees in the valley below. Kifah and Abla worked in the fields as did Manal’s other daughters, school permitting, while Saher took time off from driving the taxi.

Abla described how one day when they were making their way to their groves, settlers surrounded them with their dogs. Just the previous day, she explained, a settler on a tractor shot live bullets in their direction as they picked olives. “We live in fear, not knowing what will happen,” she said.

Another day, a settler entered the Tanatra family home with his dog. He fled when Saher returned from the fields. “We never leave any of the children alone in the house,” Manal explained.

In the early evenings before the sun sets, villagers return from the groves. On the main street of Umm Safa, they anxiously gather to discuss the latest army restrictions or settler incursions.

One evening, with a battery-powered, rake-like harvesting machine over one shoulder, 50-year-old Hassan Tanatra, a cousin of Saher’s, arrived on the main street.

“Two settlers stopped us on the street threatening us if we went to the harvest,” Hassan shared, upset. “Every day. Every day! They never stop.”

Season marked by violence

Israeli settler violence has increased in the occupied West Bank since the war in Gaza started, with more than 1,400 recorded incidents, more than 1,200 Palestinians forced from their homes and the expansion of illegal outposts and roads.

Since October 1, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has documented at least 250 settler incidents directly related to the olive harvest, compared with about 90 incidents recorded during the 2023 harvest. In this recent period, at least 57 Palestinians were injured by Israeli settlers and 11 by Israeli forces while more than 2,800 olive trees and saplings were damaged or destroyed.

Throughout the olive harvest season, Palestinians have been prohibited by the Israeli military from accessing private Palestinian land located within declared settlement boundaries, as well as along the settler roads that cut through Palestinian villages like Umm Safa. Soldiers also often prevented Palestinians from harvesting olive groves across other land in Area C.

Even in locations where the Israeli military has given permission for families to harvest on specific days near declared settlement boundaries, there have been accounts of soldiers preventing harvesters from reaching their land, including by shooting tear gas and sound grenades, or settlers attacking Palestinians. On October 17, in the village of Faqqua near Jenin, Hanan Abu Salami, 59, was shot in the back and killed by an Israeli soldier while picking olives with her son after the family had received permission to harvest near the West Bank separation barrier.

Local village councils, together with Palestinian, Israeli and international activists, subsequently coordinated solidarity harvests at various hotspots, including along the settler road passing through Umm Safa.

“The attacks on the harvest this year, in cooperation between the army and Israeli settler militias, make it very clear that Israel is trying to shape a new status quo under which Palestinians’ access to their land will become even more limited than the catastrophe it’s been before,” said Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli activist and co-organiser of the Faz’a solidarity harvest campaign, which accompanied several dozen harvests this year.

“We are joined together to keep this land Palestinian as it is by legal deed and by right,” said Mohammad Fayed, a volunteer who came to Umm Safa from Ramallah for a solidarity harvest on October 23. “We will support these people in any way we can and make sure the olive harvest is completed.”

“The settlers intend to displace the people of Umm Safa,” said Sabah at the solidarity harvest. “This is a message that we will remain steadfast and we will harvest our olives. We are rooted in this land until death.”

‘Today is beautiful’

On the morning of October 31, Manal rose early to prepare fresh bread with zaatar in the oven outside. It was the tenth and last day of their harvest.

Manal and Saher anticipated Nasser finally joining them as they completed the family harvest. “We want to finish it together,” she said.

A month and a half after the attack on their home, Nasser was starting to seem like his usual bubbly self again, running around and being the centre of attention. After not leaving the house for weeks, he had begun to venture outside and, after refusing, agreed to join his family in the groves.

Before breakfast, Nasser boasted with a giggle about how he would climb the olive trees like the Spiderman on his T-shirt.

But his worries still seeped through. “I hope the settlers don’t come and attack us again,” he said. “Last night I heard their dogs, and it was scary.”

After breakfast, Manal, Saher, two of their daughters and their son climbed down the hill towards their land. Saher carried a harvesting machine, and Nasser’s high-pitched jabbering punctuated the early morning sounds of chirping Palestine sunbirds and olive trees swaying in the breeze.

Abla and her husband, Omar, Saher’s brother, who were finishing their own harvest, worked just a few terrace levels above them with their young children.

From her sifting station on the ground, Manal gave instructions. Azeeza, 15, placed the tarps below the trees so Saher could dislodge olives with the machine. Kifah gingerly picked up loose olives, while Manal sifted olives using a metal wire container to transfer to a bucket for Nagham to carry up the hill to pour into large sacks. Nasser pried a few olives loose with a plastic rake before his attention drifted to chasing his six-year-old cousin Ahmed around the trees.

For lunch, the extended family gathered to eat maqluba, the classic Palestinian dish of rice, chicken, and vegetables flipped upside down from a pot onto a large plate. As they sat together eating, chatting and laughing, the family for a moment was at ease.

Despite the threats, the Tanatras completed their harvest – collecting about 100kg (220lbs) of olives.

Manal remarked “how proud” she was of Nasser for overcoming his fears to join his family in the harvest.

“Nothing this year feels normal,” she said as her son darted past. “But today is beautiful.”