Campaign to protect Palestinian trees

'In last autumn’s olive season, seventy-five per cent of olives in some areas went unharvested.'

The Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), a World Council of Churches programme managed by Britain Yearly Meeting (BYM), has highlighted a campaign to protect trees in Palestine.

Around 100,000 Palestinian families rely on olive trees as a source of income, according to a blog by ‘Debby’, an ecumenical accompanier (the programme’s term for its human rights monitors).

But since the Hamas attack on Israel last October, the West Bank has been placed under strict military lockdown, heightening pre-existing Israeli restrictions on Palestinians’ right to access their trees. In last autumn’s olive season, seventy-five per cent of olives in some areas went unharvested, writes Debby. Trees are being demolished and farmers prevented from ploughing their land. There are also figs, watermelons, apricots and avocados growing in Palestine.

‘When I applied to be a human rights monitor, I never envisaged that the role would entail the protection of trees,’ writes Debby, going on to list the destruction of trees and land she witnessed.

The account on the ‘Eyewitness Blog’ website highlights the Rabbis for Human Rights campaign, which recently began its annual tree-planting project, Planting Justice, in the occupied West Bank. The blog also draws attention to a petition on the website Change.org, to protect the UNESCO-listed village of Battir, located southwest of Jerusalem in the West Bank. On 24 December 2023, an illegal settlement outpost was established in Battir, threatening its traditional farming practices and natural water springs, essential to life in this area.

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