UN Human Rights Office on the olive harvest season in the OPT [EN/AR]

عربي

21 October 2025

Remarks by Head of the UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Ajith Sunghay, to the press on the olive harvest season

Today I am reminded of the verse by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish when he said: We remain, for as long as thyme and olives remain.

The olive here is never just a tree. It is livelihood and lineage, resilience and economy, and a historic vein connecting Palestinians to the land.

And just as olives are about the Palestinians’ connection to the land; the escalating assault on the olive harvest season is one of many, many Israeli aggressions designed to sever connection, to annex the land, to dispossess Palestinians, and facilitate the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.

The past three years were unimaginably difficult.

Israeli settler violence and access restrictions prevented many farmers from harvesting their land.

Settler violence has skyrocketed in scale and frequency, with the acquiescence, support, and in many cases participation, of Israeli security forces – and always with impunity.

Two weeks into the start of the 2025 harvest, we have already seen severe attacks by armed settlers against Palestinian men, women, children, and foreign solidarity activists. In the first half of 2025, there have been 757 settler attacks that resulted in casualties or property damage. This is 13% higher than the number of attacks documented in the same period in 2024.

Direct land destruction is also escalating. Settlers have burnt groves, chain -sawed olive trees, and destroyed homes and agricultural infrastructure.

New Israeli checkpoints and iron gates separated farmers from their farms, sometimes keeping farmers away until their crops failed.

The results have been devastating. In 2023, 96,000 dunums of olive land were left unharvested, resulting in over $10 million in losses for Palestinian farmers. The trend continued in the 2024 season.

Where protection is absent and accountability is elusive, risk multiplies.

Overall, over 1000 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces or settlers since 7 October 2023 in the West Bank. Thousands of Palestinians were forcibly displaced due to Israeli settler attacks, movement restrictions, and home demolitions.

The UN Human Rights Office coordinates the work of the protection cluster, including the cluster’s work in relation to the olive harvest season. With our protection partners, we continue to strengthen monitoring and documentation, provide legal aid, and ad vance the protective presence of civil society advocates to deter attacks and land destruction. We are also committed to public reporting and advocacy .

This is why we are here today. Eighty to 100 thousand Palestinian families rely on the olive harvest for their livelihoods. It is not an understatement to say that the harvest season is the economic backbone of rural Palestinian communities.

While the olive harvest season has always witnessed tensions and violence and restrictions, the escalation is truly alarming. It is occurring against the backdrop of an accelerated Israeli land grab. Israeli government officials are openly declaring the state’s intent to annex the whole of the West Bank and to forcibly transfer Palestinians.

We must remember, no matter how long the occupation has lasted, that this is not to be normalized. Israel has a legal obligation to end the occupation and reverse the annexation of the West Bank. Israel’s denial of Palestinians’ right to life, livelihood, safety, security, dignity, and self-determination is unlawful and unacceptable .

The events in Gaza did not only kill tens of thousands and displace d all its residents. It gave rise to dangerous precedents of impunity and disregard for human lives and the norms of international law. The implications are reverberating in the West Bank. If action is not taken to ensure accountability and a viable path to a just peace, the repercussions will be felt around the world.

The legal way forward is unambiguous. The International Court of Justice concluded that the occupation must end, and Israel must withdraw from all the Occupied Palestinian Territory, both the West Bank and Gaza. This includes immediately dismantling all settlements and evacuating all settlers.

In the meantime, Israel is an occupying power with extensive obligations under international law: obligations to protect Palestinians and ensure they can exercise the full range of their political, economic, and civil rights.

And the international community, especially member states with power and influence, must exercise maximum pressure to protect civilians, halt and reverse the rapidly expanding policies of annexation, and ensure accountability for decades of violations of Palestinians’ rights under international law.

And yes, it begins with the olives. We call on member states to engage in advocacy with the Israeli authorities to ensure full access and safety guarantees. They must also insist on accountability for violations in past seasons and any new violations during this coming season. This is a time for action and concerted international effort to safeguard the season and guarantee the safety of farmers and protection workers.