The olive harvest in Palestine should be a season of family gatherings, agricultural work, and celebration. Instead, farmers in the occupied West Bank are increasingly finding themselves surrounded by armed Israeli settlers, watching their olive trees burn while struggling to protect the land their families have cultivated for generations.

Specifically, on October 16, around 80 Israeli settlers descended on olive groves near Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah. They brutally attacked innocent Palestinian harvesters with stones and set trees ablaze. Incidents like these expose a disturbing reality in which Palestinian farmers risk serious injuries simply by attempting to harvest their crops on their legitimate land.

A Harvest Season Marked by Israeli Settler Violence

The attack in Abu Falah was part of a much wider escalation across the occupied West Bank. Even an Israeli human rights organisation, Yesh Din, recorded at least 170 settler attacks between September 27 and October 16, coinciding with the beginning of the annual olive harvest.

On October 16 alone, numerous credible sources documented attacks across at least eight Palestinian villages, where settlers assaulted residents, burned vehicles and targeted olive trees.

This violence also follows an exceptionally destructive harvest season in 2025. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israeli settlers carried out 178 olive-harvest-related attacks during October and November, affecting 88 Palestinian communities. Additionally, more than 6,000 trees and saplings were vandalized, nearly twice the number damaged during the previous year.

For Palestinian farmers, these attacks create difficulties extending beyond immediate physical injuries. Families frequently lose access to their groves during the limited harvesting period, while damaged equipment, stolen crops, and the fear of renewed violence threaten their seasonal earnings.

Why Olive Trees Matter So Deeply to Palestine

Olive cultivation has sustained Palestinian communities for centuries, providing food, employment, and income. It also preserves strong connections between families and their ancestral land.

According to credible figures, approximately 110,000 Palestinian families depend on privately owned olive groves, while many others earn seasonal wages from harvesting, transporting olives, and producing olive oil.

Since a mature olive tree can remain productive for generations, its destruction is evidently disastrous. Replacing one requires years of cultivation, while families who lose their harvest may struggle to meet everyday expenses long before newly planted trees become productive.

Moreover, the economic damage also extends into rural communities, affecting olive presses, local traders and workers who depend on the short but essential harvesting season.

How Illegal Israeli Settlements Are Cutting Farmers Off From Their Land

Burning trees is apparently the only way Palestinian agriculture is being undermined. Across the occupied West Bank, expanding illegal Israeli settlements, military restrictions and settler intimidation increasingly prevent farmers from reaching their own properties.

A recently published OCHA report documented a situation in Beit Ula, northwest of Hebron, where the illegal establishment of an Israeli settlement outpost has severely restricted access to approximately 1,500 dunums of agricultural land. Around half of this area is planted with olive trees.

Looking back, in January 2026, an Israeli military order also designated roughly 1,300 dunums in the area as a closed military zone for one year. Local farmers highlighted repeated intimidation and restrictions that prevented them from cultivating and even reaching their land.

Such conditions gradually destroy agricultural livelihoods even when trees remain standing. Without reliable access, farmers cannot prune branches, maintain irrigation systems, or collect ripe olives, leaving valuable groves neglected and families without dependable income.

Eventually, the combination of illegal settler violence and settlement expansion has therefore become a serious threat to the continued presence of Palestinian farming communities.

Gaza’s Destroyed Olive Groves Reveal Another Devastating Loss

The destruction of Palestinian agriculture is not confined to the West Bank. In Gaza, Israel’s genocide has devastated agricultural land, destroyed orchards and placed large areas beyond the reach of surviving farmers.

A Reuters investigation revealed that, according to Gaza’s agricultural authorities, only approximately 150,000 of the territory’s original two million olive trees remain.

The expected olive harvest has collapsed from around 40,000 tonnes to just 5,000 tonnes, while olive-oil production has sharply fallen from approximately 5,000 tonnes to 700 tonnes.

Moreover, the number of operational olive presses has also declined from roughly 40 to seven, leaving agricultural workers without employment and contributing to olive-oil prices tripling.

China Warns Israel as Illegal Settlement Expansion Continues

The growing international concern over Israel’s illegal settlement policies received renewed attention during this month, when Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi called on Israel to stop and reverse its establishment of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank.

In fact, the warning reinforces an established legal position. In its July 2024 advisory opinion, the International Court of Justice concluded that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and that it must immediately cease new settlement activities.

In a nutshell, the attacks on Palestinian olive farmers are destroying more than agricultural property. They are weakening an essential rural economy while making it increasingly difficult for families to remain on land they have cultivated for generations.

From Abu Falah’s burning groves to Gaza’s devastated orchards, the consequences extend far beyond one harvest season. Every mature tree destroyed represents lost income, years of agricultural work and an uncertain future for the families who depended on it.

Protecting Palestine’s olive harvest requires protecting the people who cultivate it and their right to remain on their land. Without that protection, the damage and genocidal activities will continue long after this year’s olives have fallen.

Unfortunately, Palestine is not being attacked on one front only. Gaza is going through a heinous genocide; Jerusalem is being pressured through holy-site violations, while the West Bank is being carved up through settlements, demolitions, and settler violence. These are connected parts of Israel’s wider attempt to weaken Palestinian life, land, and sovereignty.

Numerous Muslim countries have already mentioned many of these red lines. Specifically, in 2026, the foreign ministers of Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, the UAE, Indonesia, Pakistan, Türkiye, and Saudi Arabia issued repeated statements in favor of Palestine. Muslim nations are deeply concerned about Gaza, the situation in Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa, settlement expansion, and the E1 settlement plan. The real question is whether those red lines can become real pressure.

Jerusalem is the First Test

Jerusalem is not only a religious symbol, but also a political battlefield where Israel tests how far it can go. Access to Al-Aqsa Mosque, restrictions on worshippers, and incursions by settlers or extremist ministers all shape the future of illegally occupied East Jerusalem.

The Arab and Islamic states condemned Israeli restrictions on Muslim and Christian worship in occupied Jerusalem, including restrictions affecting Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They also stressed that Israel, as the occupying power, has no sovereignty over occupied Jerusalem.

Rather than being a small diplomatic line, it directly rejects Israel’s attempt to normalize control over the city’s sacred and political life. In this context, the UN archive published the recent joint statement on illegal Jerusalem restrictions.

If Jerusalem’s holy-site status can be repeatedly challenged without consequence, every other Palestinian red line becomes easier for Israel to test and even cross.

Gaza Shows the Real Face of Israel

The ceasefire was supposed to open the way for reconstruction, Israeli withdrawal, a new Palestinian administration and an International Stabilization Force. Even one year later, the force had not materialized, and major parts of the agreement remained stalled.

Until now, Israel’s genocidal campaign had brutally killed more than 74,000 Palestinians, while more than 1,400 Palestinians had been killed since the ceasefire took effect.

This is why the word “ceasefire” sounds completely hollow in Gaza. A ceasefire that leaves people in tents, neighborhoods in rubble, and Israeli strikes continuing does not feel like peace. Even today, fresh Israeli strikes are killing innocent Palestinians in Gaza, even as the ceasefire framework remains officially in place.

For Palestinians, the issue is not only whether aid enters. It is actually whether Gaza is allowed to live again. In the current scenario, reconstruction and peace that depend apparently on Israeli permission keep survival under the control of the same power that destroyed homes, roads, and hospitals.

The West Bank is Being Reshaped Quietly

While Gaza carries the loudest voice of genocide, the West Bank is being altered through a slower method. Settlements, outposts, checkpoints, and military restrictions not only inconvenience Palestinians, but also change the map itself.

On 2 Oct 2026, OCHA reported that West Bank humanitarian needs continue to be driven by settler violence, demolitions, and Israel’s movement restrictions. It recorded more than 70 Palestinian-owned structures demolished or sealed, 93 people displaced, including 55 children, and more than 50 settler attacks causing casualties or damage.

Adding fuel to the fire, the E1 settlement plan makes the danger even clearer. Numerous Arab and Islamic states rejected the plan east of occupied East Jerusalem because it threatens the link between East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The UN Secretary-General also warned that advancing E1 would deal a “deathblow” to the prospect of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state, while stressing that Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, must remain politically, economically, and territorially integrated.

The Mecca Pact Raises a Sharper Question

The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement has changed the regional as well as global conversation. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan signed the pact in August 2026, and an armed attack on one member is regarded as an attack on all. Additionally, in October, the three countries agreed at an emergency meeting to rapidly deploy military forces and capabilities in Saudi Arabia under that framework.

The pact ultimately proves that Muslim states can coordinate quickly when security is treated as urgent.

Palestine needs that seriousness in non-military form too. It needs legal pressure, settlement trade restrictions, sanctions on violent settler networks, defense of custodianship in Jerusalem, and reconstruction funds that support Palestinian-led recovery rather than Israeli-controlled access.

Final thoughts

In conclusion, the Muslim world has already drawn its red lines on Gaza, Jerusalem and the West Bank. Israel has crossed many of them through genocide, settlement expansion, holy-site pressure and forced displacement.

What Palestine needs now is not another statement that disappears after the headlines. It needs a strategy that makes occupation costly, protects Jerusalem’s sanctity, and keeps Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem together as one Palestinian future.

Winter is approaching Gaza, but it is not arriving as an ordinary season. For a population already crushed by continuous bombardment, acute hunger, siege, and repeated displacement, rain and cold are becoming another front in Israel’s genocide. This is because Palestinians have been deliberately left with almost nothing to protect them when storms arrive.

Across the Strip, innocent families are living in torn tents, damaged buildings, overcrowded shelters, and low-lying camps where relentless flooding is expected. These risks have also been mapped by numerous international humanitarian agencies. Yet the materials and support needed to repair shelters, reinforce camps, and protect families remain blocked, delayed, or insufficient. This is what turns winter from a weather event into a genocidal crime.

Tents That Were Never Meant to Become Homes

Although a tent is supposed to be temporary, in Gaza, it has become the forced architecture of survival. Families who once had homes, kitchens, schools and neighborhoods now live under plastic sheets, patched fabric and makeshift frames that cannot withstand months and even a few days of rain, wind and cold.

The International Organization for Migration has warned that nearly two million people in Gaza need shelter support before winter, while only 17% of winter shelter needs have been met. It also warned that El Niño could bring heavier rainfall, raising flood risks in a territory whose drainage systems have already been badly damaged.

This is not only a slight discomfort. Wet bedding, leaking tents and cold nights can become life-threatening, especially for babies, elderly people, pregnant women and the sick. So, when people are forced to sleep on the ground in shelters that cannot keep out water, winter becomes another form of deliberate violence.

Floods Are Not a Natural Surprise

Humanitarian groups already understand where the danger lies. OCHA reported that more than 13% of Gaza’s population is living in flood-prone displacement sites or unsafe buildings. They also elaborated that around 279,000 people are sheltering in 400 flood-prone displacement sites, while more than 2,300 remain in buildings that require demolition.

These huge numbers matter because they prove that the coming disaster is predictable. If camps flood, tents collapse, children fall ill from cold and contaminated water, no one can claim surprise. The sites have been identified, and the people at risk have been counted.

Gaza’s winter has become life-threatening because Israel’s genocide has destroyed the conditions needed to survive it. Roads are broken, drainage channels are blocked, homes are rubble, sewage systems are damaged, and families have been pushed from one place to another until displacement itself became permanent.

Disease Will Follow the Rain

Unfortunately, rain in Gaza falls on overcrowded tent camps, broken sewage networks, rubble-filled streets, and areas where clean water is still scarce. That makes flooding a public health emergency, not just a shelter problem.

OCHA also reported that communicable diseases continue to dominate health consultations in Gaza, including acute respiratory infections, skin infections, and acute watery diarrhea. These illnesses spread faster where people live close together, lack clean water and have little access to sanitation.

Moreover, it is evident that winter can deepen all of this. Cold and wet conditions can weaken children already suffering from acute hunger. Floodwater can carry waste into living areas. Families may ultimately be forced to keep wet clothes and blankets because they have no replacements. For people with chronic illness or disability, even reaching a clinic can become harder.

This is how a deliberate genocide operates beyond the bomb. It destroys the systems that keep people alive, then leaves them exposed to every season and every preventable danger.

Israel’s Restrictions Turn Weather Into a Weapon

The most significant fact about Gaza’s winter crisis is that it is not caused by weather alone. It is actually caused by a genocidal policy. The Norwegian Refugee Council has warned that Israeli restrictions continue to block critical shelter materials such as timber, cement and metal sheeting. It said two-thirds of Gaza’s population is living in tents and makeshift shelters made from materials that deteriorate within months.

NRC also said Israel allows only 15 trucks per week carrying so-called dual-use items from Jordan, while at least 500 truckloads of shelter materials are in the pipeline. At that pace, it could take more than seven months to bring in the materials needed now.

This is the heart of the crisis. Palestinians are facing winter unprotected because Israel controls what enters Gaza and restricts the items needed to make life survivable.

Another Shape of Genocide

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has taken many known and unknown forms: bombardment, starvation, mass displacement, destruction of hospitals, attacks on schools and the crushing of civic life. But winter adds another form. It threatens Palestinians through exposure, flooding, disease, and the denial of shelter.

The world has the data, the warnings, and it knows which camps may flood and how many families need help. It also knows that shelter materials are being blocked, and if children freeze, tents collapse, and disease spreads through flooded camps, those deaths will not be accidents.