Israel's War Devastates Gaza's Olive Harvest
Updated: 7 days ago
GAZA, October 14 — The olive harvest that once filled Gaza's markets with fruit, oil and seasonal wages has been reduced to a remnant. Local agricultural authorities estimate that only about 150,000 of the territory's original two million olive trees are still standing, according to a Reuters report published Wednesday. Israel's destruction of agricultural land and restrictions on access have struck not only at food production but at an entire way of life.
A harvest that once produced roughly 40,000 tons of olives is expected to yield about 5,000 tons this year. Output of olive oil is forecast to plunge from 5,000 tons to around 700. Of roughly 40 olive presses operating before the war, only seven remain working, and even those presses operate with little fruit to process.
These are estimates from Gaza's agricultural authorities, reported by Reuters, not an independently completed tree-by-tree survey. Their scale is nevertheless staggering: growers have lost orchards accumulated across generations, consumers face scarcity, and workers have lost the seasonal income that once supported entire households.
A family orchard reduced to a few trees
Reuters spoke with Haidar Abu Middain, 60, whose extended family once cultivated around 220 acres of olive trees in central Gaza. His relatives gathered between 1,100 and 1,500 tons of olives in a season. Today, he says that only around 20 or 30 trees remain standing on the land he can reach.
Nearly half of the family's orchard lies beyond a restricted line enforced by Israeli troops. Much of the accessible portion has been bulldozed. The surviving trees may produce only two 16-litre drums of olive oil, a fraction of a crop that once supplied local families and markets. A ceasefire has not restored destroyed trees or reopened every field.
For Palestinians, the olive tree is more than a commodity. Its annual harvest brings families together, sustains small producers and provides paid work for laborers without permanent employment. The tree takes years to grow and mature; a season of lost harvest cannot simply be replaced by imports or a one-time shipment of aid.
Scarcity becomes another tax on survival
The surviving oil has become prohibitively expensive. Reuters reported that olive oil sold at around three times its prewar price, with a standard drum costing close to $500. A product long central to everyday cooking risks becoming unattainable for the very communities that cultivated it.
In Deir al-Balah, families still gather where trees have survived. Children climb ladders, relatives sort the fruit, and temporary laborers seize the rare chance to earn a day's pay. These scenes are not evidence of a restored agricultural economy. They are evidence of the effort required to keep a tradition alive amid extensive destruction.
Reconstruction must include the land
The fight over Gaza's future is also a fight over access to soil, water, machinery, roads and markets. A genuine agricultural recovery would require farmers to reach their groves safely, remove dangerous debris, restore irrigation, replant trees and repair presses. Because olive trees need time to mature, rebuilding the prewar economy will take far longer than rebuilding a market stall.
The scale of the loss exposes how war continues after bombing slows. It survives in an absent harvest, a closed press and a family that can no longer live from its own land. Gaza's remaining farmers are still working; the conditions that once made their work sustainable have been shattered.
Sources and image credits
Reuters, October 14, 2026, reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Mahmoud Issa: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/gazans-harvest-dregs-olive-groves-bulldozed-cut-off-by-israel-2026-10-14/
Additional archival image: Qafin olive harvest, 2008, photograph by Orrling, CC BY-SA 3.0: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Olive_harvest.jpg
Lead image: Palestinian family olive harvest in the Jenin area of the West Bank, November 2015. Photo: TrickyH, CC BY-SA 3.0. This is an archival Palestinian olive-harvest photograph, not the 2026 Gaza scene. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Palestinian_farmers_harvesting_olives,_November_2015.jpg
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