Tens of thousands of olive saplings are taking root in the conflict-scarred West Bank, funded by customers of the UK-based fair trade company, Zaytoun.
Olive trees have been the lifeblood of rural Palestine for millennia, but in recent decades they’ve also become a potent symbol of resistance. Since 1967, settlers and Israeli authorities have uprooted an estimated 1m trees amid the ongoing seizure of West Bank land.
“It’s a systematic act aimed at destroying a way of life and forcing Palestinians from their homes,” explains Zaytoun’s Palestinian director, Taysir Arbasim, who estimates around 25,000 families have been driven out of olive farming as a result.
