SACHA PFEIFFER, HOST:
Olives and dates are the pride and joy of many Palestinians. This is the time of year when Palestinian farmers go out to the hills and fields to pick them. But Israeli settlers have been attacking and intimidating Palestinian olive farmers, including Palestinians with U.S. citizenship. NPR's Daniel Estrin joined farmers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and has this report on what it's been like.
(CROSSTALK)
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: At the top of a hill is a large group of Palestinian farmers waiting for Israeli soldiers to let them pass. The mayor of Mazra'a al-Sharqiya (ph) village, Abdel Samad Abdel-Aziz (ph), said he spoke with one of the soldiers blocking the road.
ABDEL SAMAD ABDEL-AZIZ: This is it for us - wait, wait, wait, wait because settlers is over there. He's scared to - his settlers to be touched with us. That's why.
ESTRIN: Israeli settlers are spread out across the hills. Some squat in small, rustic homes Palestinians built alongside their olive groves. Villager Mohammed Hijaz (ph) points to a settler across the valley.
MOHAMMED HIJAZ: The settlers, they want - whatever they want to do. You see where he at? He's standing over there. That's one of them.
ESTRIN: The U.N. says this olive harvest season has been the most dangerous in five years, with more than 100 recorded settler attacks in 70 towns and villages, more than 4,000 olive trees and saplings vandalized. Nearby, a settler beat an elderly woman picking olives, beating her over the head with a club. It was caught on video.
HIJAZ: We want to live in peace. We don't want this war, and we want to be able to be - able to get to our land and to have better life what we have right now.
ESTRIN: The Israeli military told NPR it seeks to prevent friction through security coordination. This is the one day these villagers have military permission to go to their trees. It's not enough time to harvest them all. Hijaz has 1,016 trees. He sells his olive oil and uses it in his own kitchen all year round.
HIJAZ: Olive is my life. This is our history. The history of Palestine is the olive.
ESTRIN: American and international volunteers are also here to try to protect the farmers from settler attacks. None want to talk on the record. Israel has been deporting some activists. In a statement, police said it's to prevent them from staging provocations and tarnishing Israel's image around the world.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
ESTRIN: When the soldiers give the all clear, everyone gets in pickup trucks with buckets and rakes. We hitch a ride with Maha Hamid (ph), her husband Ghaleb (ph) and their two sons.
Hugging the slope of this mountain are just gorgeous rows of olive trees.
GHALEB HAMID: (Speaking Arabic).
(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE BEEPING)
ESTRIN: And now we see right at the top of the hill here a settler shepherd and his flock of sheep.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)
ESTRIN: We arrive at the Hamid family olive grove of 55 trees. The little home they built near the grove was vandalized. They say settlers stole a water pump. The family spreads tarps under an olive tree and rakes the branches.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLIVES DROPPING)
ESTRIN: The olives are falling onto the tarp on the ground, dropping onto the tarp like rain.
G HAMID: (Speaking Arabic).
ESTRIN: Ghaleb Hamid says they have to work quickly because it's too dangerous to stay out too long. We eat a picnic lunch under the tree, and one of the couple's sons, Abdelrahman Hamid (ph), drives us back to the center of the village. But on the way, this happens.
(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE DRIVING)
ABDELRAHMAN HAMID: Oh, my God.
ESTRIN: Oh.
A HAMID: [Expletive]. Oh, my God. [Expletive].
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Are there a lot of them?
A HAMID: Two of them. [Expletive]. Two of them.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Yeah. Let's move on.
ESTRIN: He's cursing as two young Israeli settler boys suddenly appear, walking out of the fields into the middle of the road as we approach. They look like young teens. One's holding a long object in his hand. Young settlers have attacked Palestinian farmers' cars this olive season. Our driver backs down the steep village road and finds another way out.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE RUNNING)
ESTRIN: At a nearby olive press in Turmus Ayya village, we meet Palestinian Americans who have flown in from the U.S. especially to pick their family's olives. Municipality spokesman Yasser Alkam (ph).
YASSER ALKAM: You know, there is a ceasefire in Gaza, but as far as we're concerned, in the West Bank, we haven't seen the effects of that - the effects of the ceasefire. The settlers attack increased. They have machine guns. A lot of people are intimidated and fear going to their own land.
ESTRIN: So families aren't harvesting all their trees this year. We meet 19-year-old Palestinian American Adam Gunaim (ph), visiting from Orange County, California.
ADAM GUNAIM: My grandpa used to sell olive oil in the States, but this year, he's not taking any to the States 'cause most of the trees - most of the olive trees are where the settlers are. If we go, they start shooting.
(SOUNDBITE OF HIGH-PITCHED TONE)
ESTRIN: From the West Bank's highest hilltops, you can drive all the way down to the lowest point you can walk on Earth. Next to the Dead Sea, bordering Jordan, are palm trees, where Palestinian farmer Nader Maali (ph) grows Medjool dates.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE RUNNING)
NADER MAALI: (Speaking Arabic).
ESTRIN: He says it takes about a month and a half for the unripe, yellow fruit to turn brown. This is date-picking season.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCK RUNNING)
ESTRIN: We have now climbed onto a forklift. Woo. Now we're being lifted up to the top of this date tree. Oh, this is beautiful. I am face-to-face with some plump, ripe dates ready to be picked.
MAALI: Bonbon.
ESTRIN: They call them bonbons 'cause they're like candy.
There hasn't been any Israeli settler violence reported around the date harvest this year, but there's no forgetting where we are.
(SOUNDBITE OF FIGHTER JETS FLYING OVERHEAD)
ESTRIN: Four fighter jets of the Israeli Air Force just flew right above us.
MAALI: (Speaking Arabic).
ESTRIN: Maali says Israeli soldiers came to the farm a few weeks ago, questioned his farm hands and searched them. There's a war over water in the area with Israeli settlers, and a drought this winter has left farmers with drier dates.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINES RUNNING)
ESTRIN: Nearby, a date farm and packing house scans each and every date for quality control. Alia Khatib (ph) is deputy CEO of Rift Valley Farms, a Palestinian women-run business packing about 10 million dates this season.
ALIA KHATIB: We have both organic dates and conventional dates from the Jordan Valley of Palestine. We ship to Europe, to Australia, to New Zealand.
ESTRIN: She says since the Gaza War broke out, there's been high consumer demand abroad for Palestinian dates. Just like olives, they're a symbol. Daniel Estrin, NPR News, the West Bank. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
