BETHLEHEM: About a dozen Palestinians rush to pick olives in a field sliced by a fresh road lined with barbed wire, two weeks before the army starts to raise a hi-tech security fence that will run through their land.
Unfortunately for them, their 500-tree olive grove is located just below an Israeli military checkpoint marking the entrance to Bethlehem and stands on the route of the hi-tech security fence that will cordon Jerusalem and the rest of Israel off from the West Bank.
The barbed wire and crudely dug out road already walls off one section of their field, which the pickers blithely ignore as they gather their precious fruit to make olive oil.
The security fence, which was initiated by the Israeli government in June after months of suicide bombings launched from the West Bank, threatens to destroy the way of life for thousands of Palestinians whose towns and villages lie smack on its path.
The 350-kilometre montage of fencing, trenches and walls roughly follows the Green Line, or 1967 boundary between the West Bank and Israel, but veers several kilometres into Palestinian lands in various spots.
Pickers like Nour Roumi, 38, are rushing to complete what may be their last annual olive harvest, before work on the fence begins near Bethlehem.
“We work without a break. For us, it is a race against the clock,” Roumi says. “It is the last time we will do the harvest in this olive grove.”
Israel claims the fence is not permanent and will be removed when a peace settlement is finally reached with the Palestinians, but this gives little solace to Roumi and his family who do not have any other olive fields.
The pickers say the harvest, started weeks early this year does not look promising. The olives are green and hard, but they could not afford the luxury of waiting until the middle of the month when the harvest usually starts.
“It is much too early for the harvest. The olives are still too hard,” an elderly man complains from his ladder as he squeezes the tiny fruits.
“But we have no choice,” he adds.
The pickers say they are afraid of drawing the wrath of nearby soldiers. But no one bothers them on the weekend, when Jews have their traditional days of rest.
“Normally we do not have the right to come to this side of the field,” says a woman named Mouna, who is busy picking through the best of the crop while a child sleeps beside her.
They have reason to be afraid. On Sunday, another Palestinian olive-picker was shot dead by Jewish settlers in the village of Akrabeh, near the northern West Bank town of Nablus, and wounded another, Palestinian medical sources said.
After the killing, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem called on the security services to protect Palestinian farmers harvesting their olives.
“The security forces have not taken sufficient steps to enforce the law on settlers who used violence to prevent Palestinian farmers from harvesting their olives,” the group said in a statement.
B’Tselem said settlers have also harvested olives belonging to Palestinians and stolen the crop, and that Israeli security forces had failed to prevent such incidents.
Since the intifada started over two years ago, Palestinians living near settlements have often run into trouble during the olive harvest, with clashes between the two sides or the army barring them from their fields.
Roumi’s family has toiled in the field for 20 years. “It will be a real blow if we can no longer work here.”
A good day’s labour usually means the Roumi family leaves with 200 kilograms of olives. But this year, the unripe olives will produce less oil — whereas 10 kilograms of olives would usually produce at least three litres of olive oil, now they expect no more than two litres.—AFP