Gazans Harvest Dregs of Olive Groves Bulldozed and Cut Off by Israel
Only eight olive presses remain operational as farmers say war damage has wiped out about 80% of Gaza’s production, PARC said.
- Gaza's olive harvest has shrunk to about 5,000 tons this year from the usual 40,000, with agriculture authorities estimating barely 150,000 of the original 2 million olive trees remain standing.
- Nearly 90 percent of Gaza's olive orchards were damaged by October 2025, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, leaving only 3 percent of agricultural land accessible and undamaged.
- Operating olive oil presses dropped from about 40 to only seven, pushing prices to nearly $500 a drum—a cost shopper Imad al-Ajrami says is well beyond what Gazan families can afford.
- In Deir al-Balah, one of the few remaining olive groves serves as a rare sanctuary where farmer Khalil Mansi and his family gather olives, though the harvest is far smaller than pre-war yields.
- Recovery will require generations of land rehabilitation and years of tree growth before new olives can be harvested, though some farmers envision eventually replanting their destroyed groves and reclaiming the harvest traditions.
17 Articles
17 Articles
Gazans harvest dregs of olive groves bulldozed and cut off by Israel
"What a four-year-old olive grain has eaten, and God is a Haram... unjust," in these words, Kreman Sharab, a citizen of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, and a famine that goes beyond denying her an olive grain that she used to eat from her land, to the loss of an entire season of memories and lives that were gathering Palestinians with their trees and lands.
The situation of Palestinian Zahir Kashko reflects what happened to the olive sector in Gaza after the Israeli war machine destroyed most of it, which cast a shadow over the quantities and prices of oil and olives produced.
'A tree that produced around 100 kilograms (220.4 pounds) of olives before the war now produces no more than 20 (44 pounds) to 30 kilograms (66 pounds),' farmer Kamel Baraka tells Anadolu
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