Two of my family’s olive groves fell under Israeli control and got bulldozed. The third is damaged beyond recognition.
By Amna Ahmed Dmeida
This article was originally published by Truthout
Two of my family’s olive groves fell under Israeli control and got bulldozed. The third is damaged beyond recognition.
Every year, there were seasons and occasions that brought families together: holidays, Ramadan iftar meals, the end of the school year, and other gatherings. But for us, there was another season we looked forward to every year: olive-picking season.
Before the war, we always looked forward to the month of October. As the weather changed and the olives ripened, families prepared to spend long days in the fields. We would start before sunrise. It was still dark when we got ready to leave for our land.
My twin sister Alaa and I would go with our parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins. The night before, we would prepare the baskets and large pieces of cloth that we would spread under the trees. Someone would bring tea, while someone else would bring bread, olive oil, olives, and za’atar. Somehow, we always forgot something. For us, olive picking was part of the rhythm of our lives and family memories, a time we knew would return every year.
The Last Harvest
The last time my family picked olives together was October 6, 2023. That day, there was nothing to suggest that the season would be different. We went to our land as we did every year and spent long hours among the trees. Some of us collected olives, while others spread the cloths or gathered fruit from the ground. Then we put the harvest into bags. My grandfather was there with us, as he had been during previous seasons. We worked, talked, and ate together as the cloths slowly filled with olives. We did not think this day would become a memory. We thought the olive season would come again the following year. But the next day, the war began, and the olive season was no longer the same.
Olive picking was one of the few times each year when our extended family came together for a day. The work was tiring, but the day was filled with conversation and laughter. The men climbed the trees and used sticks to reach the branches, while the women spread cloths underneath and gathered the olives. During breaks, we sat under the trees, drank tea, and ate together.
For Alaa and me, October had another meaning. It was our birthday month. On October 30, 2022, we celebrated our birthday on the land where we picked olives. Our mother made a cake, and we all sat together and spent the day there, surrounded by our family and the olive trees. It was a simple birthday, but having everyone together made it special. It was my last birthday on that land before the war.
When Land Becomes Inaccessible
My family had three plots of land planted with olive trees. Two of them are now under Israeli control and have been bulldozed, so we can no longer reach them. We can still access the third, but it no longer looks like the place where we used to spend our autumns. The trees that once brought us together have been damaged, and the land around them has changed. The land is there, but our life there has been uprooted.
The destruction of olive trees in Gaza means more than losing a harvest. It means losing a season, a tradition, memories, and a place where generations of my family used to come together.
What happened to my family’s land is not an isolated experience. Across Gaza, agricultural land has been damaged or has become impossible to access. Wells, greenhouses, irrigation systems and other infrastructure that farmers depend on have also been decimated.
According to an August 2026 assessment by the UN Satellite Centre and UN Food and Agriculture Organization, only 448 hectares, or 3 percent of Gaza’s farmland, were both accessible and undamaged as of June 24, 2026. Much of the accessible land had been damaged and could no longer be farmed without repairs.
A UN assessment published in late 2025 found that 89 percent of orchard trees had been damaged. Olive orchards were among the most affected, with 90 percent of their area damaged.
These numbers show the scale of the destruction, but they cannot show what it means for a family to lose trees that were part of its life and memories.
For my family, losing the trees was not the only problem. Even though the land is still there, we cannot reach it to care for it or farm it.
Many families also depended on their land as an important source of income. The Al-Batsh family includes four sons and six daughters. Before the war, the family cultivated the land and relied on its crops. The olive harvest was part of the work they returned to every year and an important source of income for the family. Today, the family lives in tents they have set up on the same land. The place that once provided income has become a place where they are trying to live after displacement. The land is still there, but the family can no longer depend on it as before the war.
For a family of this size, losing a farming season also means losing part of the income they relied on for their daily needs.
Our stories are different, but losing the land and our access to it has left a similar mark on my family. Olive-picking season is not just a family memory — it was essential to our lives.
What Remains
Now, October no longer carries the same meaning. For the third year, October 7 comes at the beginning of olive-picking season, when my family would normally be preparing to return to the fields. The month used to bring us together. Now it bears the memory of land we can no longer reach and a life we can no longer live.
Memories like these make it difficult to look at the destruction of agricultural land in numbers. The scale can be described in hectares, percentages, and damaged trees, but these numbers cannot tell the whole story.
Behind every piece of land is a different story. For some families, the land was a source of income. For others, it was a place to gather, eat, and spend time together. In either case, it was more than a place for farming. It was part of our heritage, our daily lives, our living memories. We were not thinking about preserving a tradition when we went to the fields. We were simply doing what our family had always done.
On October 6, 2023, we did it for the last time. Now, I do not know when a new olive-picking season will come or what will remain of our three plots by the time we can return. Planting new trees will not bring back the trees we lost, the mornings we spent there with our grandparents, or the birthdays we celebrated among them.
But those days have not disappeared completely. I still remember waking before sunrise, spreading the cloth under the trees, gathering around food, and returning home at the end of the day. If we are able to return, the trees we knew may no longer be there, and the place may not look the way we left it. But I hope that one day we will be able to return and start again, even if that means planting new trees and waiting years for them to grow. I hope a day will come when we wake up before sunrise again, go to the land together, spread the cloth under the trees, and gather around the olive harvest.
That day will not be a return to the life we had before October 7. That life will not return as it was. But it could be the beginning of something new: a time when olive-picking season becomes a day for my family to come together again, instead of simply a memory we look back on.
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