NABLUS, West Bank — The olive trees on the slope below the village of Burin were planted, the Qadous family says, by a great-grandfather who was born under Ottoman rule. This year the family was allotted two days to harvest them.
The olive harvest, which runs from early October to mid-November across the West Bank, is the economic backbone of the territory’s rural areas, supporting an estimated 100,000 families and producing in a good year about 25,000 tons of oil, according to the Palestinian agriculture ministry. About 10 million trees cover nearly half the territory’s cultivated land. For groves that lie near Israeli settlements or beyond the separation barrier, access is governed by a coordination system under which farmers apply through the Palestinian liaison office for specific days on which the Israeli military permits entry.
Farmers, agricultural organizations and the United Nations humanitarian office say the number of permitted days has fallen sharply. The U.N. office reported that in the 2025 season, farmers in 48 villages in the northern West Bank were granted an average of 2.5 days of access to groves in restricted areas, compared with an average of 7 in 2022, and that about 4,100 trees were damaged or uprooted in incidents it documented across the territory. Data for the current season is being compiled; preliminary figures released Friday for the Nablus governorate showed 34 villages had received access dates, most for two days.
“Two days for 300 trees is not a harvest. It is a sample,” said Ghassan Qadous, 61, who farms with his three sons. “We bring 20 relatives, we pick what we can reach, and we leave the rest on the tree. The oil is less each year. The permits are less each year. The trees are the same.”
The Israeli military body that administers civilian affairs in the territory said in a statement that coordinated access days were allocated according to security assessments, that additional days were granted on request where conditions allowed and that it had deployed forces to protect harvesters in several locations this season. It said it was investigating incidents reported to it.
The economics compound the restrictions. Olive oil prices in the West Bank have risen to about 35 shekels a kilogram, roughly $9.50, as the harvest has shrunk, but farmers who cannot reach their trees cannot benefit. The agriculture ministry estimates that the 2025 harvest was about 60 percent of the 10-year average, and that income losses across the sector exceeded $70 million. Olive presses in the Nablus area, which normally run around the clock in late October, were operating at about half capacity last week.
International volunteers, who have accompanied harvesters in some villages for two decades, have been fewer this year; several organizations have reduced their programs citing security concerns and visa denials. A Palestinian nonprofit that coordinates domestic volunteers said it had registered 6,200 people this season, up from 4,000 last year, most of them students and office workers from Ramallah and Nablus.
On the slope below Burin on Sunday, the second of the Qadous family’s two days, the picking went from first light to dusk. By evening, tarpaulins held about 900 kilograms of olives from about 110 trees. “Enough oil for the family and some to sell,” said Mr. Qadous. “Not enough to call it a year. We will apply again in the spring for pruning days. Perhaps we will get one.”
A version of this article appears in print on Oct. 12, 2026, Section A, Page 7 of the European edition with the headline: In the West Bank, an Olive Harvest Measured in Permits and Hours Rather Than Tons.
