Israeli Harvest Concludes Against Backdrop of War

Over the past two months, Israeli olive grow­ers have har­vested under chal­leng­ing con­di­tions. 

While some areas were directly affected by ongo­ing mil­i­tary oper­a­tions, oth­ers faced indi­rect con­se­quences of the con­flict, such as work­force short­ages, dis­rupted sup­plies and lim­ited access to essen­tial ser­vices. 

Israel has been at war with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza since October 7, 2023, when mil­i­tants crossed from the Palestinian enclave into south­ern Israel, killing 1,139 peo­ple and tak­ing 250 hostages.

Shortly after, the Lebanese mil­i­tant group Hezbollah began fir­ing rock­ets into north­ern Israel. The con­flict sim­mered until the end of September when Israel started to esca­late its attacks on Hezbollah, even­tu­ally invad­ing south­ern Lebanon.

Gaza’s Hamas-run health min­istry reports 46,000 deaths since the con­flict began. Meanwhile, Lebanese author­i­ties esti­mate that there have been more than 3,000 deaths. The Israeli Defence Force said 840 sol­diers have been killed in the war.

“It is a very chal­leng­ing time for Israel,” said Nimrod Azulay, co-owner of KeremZait. 

The award-win­ning pro­ducer is sit­u­ated on the out­skirts of Mishmar HaYarden, over­look­ing the Jordan River in north­ern Israel, at the south­ern edge of the Hula Valley. 

“This sea­son was excel­lent in both vol­ume and qual­ity, fol­low­ing a poor har­vest in terms of vol­ume last year,” Azulay said. 

He explained that this year was an ​‘on year’ in the olive tree’s nat­ural fruit-bear­ing cycle, which typ­i­cally results in a larger yield. 

According to pre­lim­i­nary esti­mates from the International Olive Council, Israel is expected to pro­duce 15,000 met­ric tons of olive oil in the 2024/25 crop year.

Throughout the har­vest, the ongo­ing con­flict made it impos­si­ble for most local grow­ers to rely on their usual sea­sonal work­force, includ­ing Palestinian labor­ers.

“The invest­ment in tech­nol­ogy and machin­ery has proven its worth every sea­son,” Azulay said. ​“This year, it was espe­cially crit­i­cal, allow­ing us to grow, har­vest and pro­duce our olive oil with­out rely­ing on addi­tional work­ers or ser­vices, which are much harder to secure dur­ing wartime. Particularly in the north­ern region, where the con­flict has been most intense.”

“For KeremZait, there is no ques­tion: dur­ing the war, we con­tinue to grow and pro­duce olive oil, even amidst bomb­ings and attacks,” he added. 

Further south, near Jerusalem, the war also sig­nif­i­cantly impacted olive grow­ers.

“The mil­i­tary cri­sis has undoubt­edly shaped the way we oper­ated this year,” said Hani Ashkenazi, founder and head of the multi-awarded Jerusalem Olive Oil.

“While we were for­tu­nate to avoid major logis­ti­cal and dis­tri­b­u­tion delays, the lack of avail­able work­ers was a press­ing chal­lenge,” she added. ​“Many indi­vid­u­als were unavail­able for work due to the cri­sis, which placed addi­tional strain on our team dur­ing the har­vest.”

Ashkenazi said the con­flict has a pro­found emo­tional impact on every­one involved in the oper­a­tion, includ­ing the farm­ers, work­ers and their fam­i­lies.

“However, what stood out to me most was the unwa­ver­ing spirit of opti­mism and sol­i­dar­ity among every­one involved,” she said. ​“Despite the dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances, we worked harder than ever, moti­vated by a shared belief in what we do and the impor­tance of bring­ing the fruits of our labor to mar­ket.”

This year’s cam­paign was highly suc­cess­ful in quan­tity and qual­ity com­pared to the pre­vi­ous sea­son. 

“The early har­vest brought lower con­ver­sion rates, around ten per­cent, but this is typ­i­cal when pri­or­i­tiz­ing the pro­duc­tion of more aro­matic and com­plex extra vir­gin olive oil,” Ashkenazi said. ​“As the sea­son pro­gressed and the olives matured, the con­ver­sion rates increased sig­nif­i­cantly, rang­ing between 16 and 24 per­cent, depend­ing on the vari­ety.”

Back in the coun­try’s north, the team behind Sindyanna of Galilee addressed the social and com­mer­cial com­plex­i­ties of this year’s chal­leng­ing har­vest.

“The esca­lat­ing con­flict in our region high­lights the urgency and sig­nif­i­cance of our mis­sion,” said Hadas Lahav, the founder of the award-win­ning non­profit. ​“The ongo­ing social and polit­i­cal ten­sions between Arab and Jewish Israeli cit­i­zens pro­foundly affect our com­mu­nity, espe­cially as we work to cre­ate a shared space for Arab-Jewish coop­er­a­tion.”

“Many Israelis are seek­ing alter­na­tives to the belief that war is inevitable,” she added. ​“Sindyanna rep­re­sents a model for a dif­fer­ent, more hope­ful future for these indi­vid­u­als.”

Despite the chal­lenges cre­ated by the ongo­ing con­flict, Lahav said there has been a sense of sol­i­dar­ity among Israelis, espe­cially for local busi­nesses.

“Our local mar­ket demand has dou­bled, with repeat orders for olive oil from Israeli cus­tomers,” Lahav said. 

Similarly to last year’s har­vest, Lahav said the clo­sure of the bor­der with the West Bank has made hir­ing enough work­ers very dif­fi­cult, espe­cially for tra­di­tional farm­ers. 

“The most press­ing issue was the lack of work­force due to restric­tions on Palestinian work­ers enter­ing Israel from the West Bank,” she said. ​“This par­tic­u­larly impacted small press houses and Arab farm­ers with non-irri­gated groves, who tra­di­tion­ally rely on man­ual har­vest­ing.”

“In pre­vi­ous years, around 12,000 sea­sonal work­ers assisted with olive har­vest­ing in Israel. Since October 7, 2023, their entry, along with that of an addi­tional 150,000 Palestinian work­ers in other sec­tors, has been pro­hib­ited,” Lahav added. ​“This sit­u­a­tion has been cat­a­strophic not only for Israeli farm­ers and the work­ers them­selves but also for the Palestinian econ­omy, which lacks suf­fi­cient alter­na­tives in the West Bank labor mar­ket.”

Sindyanna oper­ates in Kana of Galilee, near Nazareth, and only 50 kilo­me­ters from the bor­der with Lebanon. 

“The war in north­ern Israel took place dur­ing the har­vest, cre­at­ing dan­ger­ous con­di­tions for the farm­ers, with the con­stant threat of rock­ets falling on the groves,” Lahav said. ​“This often pre­vented us from access­ing the fields or cre­ated sig­nif­i­cant logis­ti­cal hur­dles,”

Even in such con­di­tions, Sindyanna man­aged to har­vest on sched­ule, and Lahav said the non­profit pro­duced high-qual­ity organic olive oil. 

“Our com­mit­ment to organic farm­ing, fair trade and regen­er­a­tive agri­cul­ture reflects our respect for the envi­ron­ment and belief in sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture,” Lahav said. 

Sindyanna works with local Israeli and Palestinian farm­ers to tran­si­tion to organic prac­tices and seek inter­na­tional cer­ti­fi­ca­tions to add value to their prod­ucts. 

“Through annual pro­fes­sional audits of olive groves, we ensure the avoid­ance of chem­i­cal pes­ti­cides and fer­til­iz­ers,” Lahav said. ​“This process pro­motes health­ier soil and trees, result­ing in olives of excep­tional qual­ity. It also fos­ters a stronger con­nec­tion between the com­mu­nity and the land, cul­ti­vat­ing a deep respect for nature.”

According to Lahav, this sus­tain­able approach, along with the ded­i­cated per­sonal involve­ment of many indi­vid­u­als, was a key fac­tor in the suc­cess of the lat­est olive oil cam­paign. 

“This suc­cess reflects the extra­or­di­nary efforts and deter­mi­na­tion of our team, as well as the mobi­liza­tion of fam­ily, friends and vol­un­teers who came together to help dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time,” Lahav noted. 

“Sindyanna remains stead­fast in its mis­sion of pro­mot­ing peace, col­lab­o­ra­tion, and sus­tain­able devel­op­ment, even amidst the cur­rent chal­leng­ing cir­cum­stances,” she con­cluded.

• AP News
• AP News