While olive picking season is yet to officially begin, Palestinians began early efforts to reach their groves this week, and Israeli settlers also began their attacks, according to Al Jazeera reporting.
Across the occupied West Bank, harvesters were beaten, trees were burned, crops and tools were stolen, and Israeli soldiers closed land to its owners.
On October 3 in Jabal Qamas, between the towns of Osarin and Beita south of Nablus, settlers from the illegal Mevaser Shalom outpost attacked a family of harvesters. The attack left one man, Hussam Adily, in critical condition, and injured his brother and mother, according to Israeli activist Jonathan Pollack and Arabic-language media reports.
The settlers then entered Osarin, ransacking a home and smashing cars. Although the Israeli military opened an investigation, it said the attackers had fled before soldiers arrived, The Times of Israel reported.
Similar attacks on Palestinian olive pickers occurred across the north and centre of the West Bank, including in the villages of Rantis, Sebastia, Beit Imrin, Deir Sharaf, Aqraba, az-Zawiya, Ramin and Arrabuna. Farmers were pepper-sprayed, run over, or struck with sticks and fists, with several requiring hospital treatment, according to Wafa and local field reports.
In Beita's Jabal al-Arma, Israeli settlers opened fire on pickers and forces lobbed tear gas directly at them.
Alongside the violence, settlers stole harvested olives, ladders and tarps in Sinjil, where thefts have been a near-daily occurrence for more than a week, as well as in Rafat, Kafr Ra'i, Faqqua and elsewhere, according to Wafa.
Trees were also targeted. Near Abu Dis, settlers torched roughly 55 olive trees and a family's freshly picked harvest. In other villages, settlers drove their flocks through Palestinian-owned groves, ruining crops.
Where settlers were not blocking the harvest, soldiers often were. Israeli forces turned farmers away from their own land in Deir Istiya, Farkha, Haris, az-Zawiya and Silwan, confiscating identification cards and tools, according to Wafa.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, Israeli strikes continued, ignoring a year-old ceasefire as the territory's humanitarian and medical systems slid further towards collapse, with winter approaching.