Palestine: Delayed by war, Gaza's olive harvest is too little, too late, say farmers

GAZA : Farmers in Gaza were taking advantage of the truce between Israel and Hamas to harvest what was left of their olives after weeks of fighting during which they dared not go to their lands for fear of getting killed. In a normal year the harvest would have started weeks earlier, but until the truce farmers were afraid of being mistaken for Hamas militants and targeted by Israeli forces if they ventured out into the olive groves. Some lands were also damaged by fighting or the passage of military vehicles, while some farmers were displaced from their homes and unable to get back to their groves. "This war destroyed us. There's hardly any production. The majority of the harvest was wasted," said Fathy Abu Salah, who was picking olives with a small team, sorting them from leaves and twigs on a groundsheet and collecting them in a wheelbarrow. He said that normally they would harvest enough olives to fill 12 containers, but this year they would fill just one. There were other ...