UN human rights office reports live ammunition and arson at start of West Bank olive harvest

The UN human rights office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said the olive harvest in the occupied West Bank has opened with live ammunition, arson and the destruction of centuries-old olive trees. It urged states and donors to take urgent action to protect Palestinian communities, and said the season had an “ominous start”.

The UN aid coordination office, known as OCHA (the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs), recorded at least 160 Israeli settler attacks linked to the olive harvest in the first two weeks of October. It said the attacks came “often under the protection of, or with the participation of, Israeli forces”.

According to the UN news reports, settlers also damaged Palestinian property and stole harvested olives and farm equipment. They assaulted a Washington Post photojournalist who was covering the harvest. They also attacked European diplomats who were visiting a Palestinian community.

The human rights office said thousands of Palestinian farmers cannot reach their olive trees because of severe Israeli movement restrictions. UN News reported that these restrictions have dramatically worsened over the past three years. The office also said settlers are being allowed onto Palestinians’ land to harvest their crops.

Ajith Sunghay, head of the human rights office in the territory, said: “Palestinians often say that olive trees are symbolic of their existence as a group and their connection to the land”. He added: “This is yet another tool of displacement and dispossession, adding to the suffering of communities whose rights are under attack on a daily basis.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture gave figures for the damage. It estimates losses to the olive sector at $157 million since October 2023. It says 90 per cent of Gaza’s two million olive trees have been destroyed in that time. In the West Bank, 286,000 olive trees were damaged between 2023 and the end of September 2026. That total includes 100,000 trees this year, before the harvest began. The Arabic-language UN News report breaks the damage down by year: 25,000 trees in 2023, 70,000 in 2024, 91,000 in 2025 and 100,000 in 2026.

Mr. Sunghay repeated a call by the Protection Cluster, a network of more than 100 international and national organisations led by his office. The Cluster asked Member States to increase their diplomatic field presence in high-risk communities, particularly during harvest periods. It urged national governments to press Israel to ensure Palestinians’ safe access to their agricultural land, protect farmers from violence and expulsion, strengthen accountability and end settler expansion.

The Cluster also asked donors for timely and flexible funding for protective presence, legal assistance, food security and livelihoods interventions.

UN agencies are not only observers here. UN News reported that staff of the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees have helped farmers harvest olives in Beit Surik, Biddu and Wadi Fukin. It also reported that UN officials allocated $750,000 from the Humanitarian Fund in 2024 to support olive farmers.

The source items do not include a response from the Israeli government or Israeli forces. They do not say which states, if any, have answered the calls for action. The figures on damage and losses are the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture’s own estimates, and this paper cannot check them.