Israel is 'waging a war on our olive trees'

After the first rainfall of autumn, Salah Abu Ali announced the harvest of one of the world’s oldest olive trees in al-Walaja, a Palestinian farming village between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. He spread red mats around the enormous gnarled trunk, fetched wooden ladders to reach the high branches and gathered his family under the monumental tree.

‘Everyone comes to pick olives, the young and the old. It’s our source of income and our source of hope. This tree has been feeding people for thousands of years,’ says Abu Ali. Scientists who studied the tree estimated its age at between 4,000 to 5,000 years, predating any of the Abrahamic religions. Nearly half of all cultivated land in the occupied West Bank and Gaza is planted with olive trees, and around 100,000 Palestinian families are estimated to rely on their groves as a source of income.

But al-Walaja is besieged by Israeli settlements and the separation fence that has cut off farmers from their lands. ‘Before the wall was built, we had a lot of old olive trees here,’ says Abu Ali, pointing to the nearby fence of a settlers’ road encroaching on his land. ‘Now we live in a prison.’