The Olive Trees of Gaza. A Metaphor for Palestinian Resilience

E. Mark Windle 25 October 2026

For those curious about the title choice of the latest work-in-progress, here’s an explainer.

Where the Olive Trees Grow is the second book in my exploration of nutrition welfare in Gaza. Picking up the theme where The Hundred Year Hunger left off, I was searching for a title that reflected resistance, resilience and hope. The olive tree was an obvious choice—a perfect metaphor with its own history mirroring the Palestinian story.

Locust plagues and the Ottoman

Olive trees have been part of the agricultural landscape in the Middle East for centuries. Back in the early 1900s, a number of locust plagues affected Palestine, Syria and Mount Lebanon. Leaves, fruit and the bark of hundreds of thousands of olive trees were stripped, along with pretty much everything else in the locusts’ path.

One particular episode coincided with a critical period during World War I. The British Army and allies had implemented a blockade against the Ottoman army, to prevent access to coal which could enable movements of Ottoman soldiers. To circumvent the blockade, what was left of the olive trees was hacked down so that wood could be used as train fuel. With the olive trees gone, cereal crops ruined and the Arab population contained in what was effectively an open prison, famine ensued. Somewhere around 100,000 and 200,000 people died in the Levant between 1915 and 1918.

Miraculously, within a year the groves started to re-establish themselves. In intervening decades the olive industry in Gaza both flourished and receded, primarily due to political and military decisions (and neglect) by subsequent occupying forces rather than environmental factors.

Gaza’s olive industry

Fast forward to the years immediately prior to October 2023. Up to 100,000 Palestinian families were dependent on the olive industry, which was contributing the equivalent of 343 million dollars to annual GDP. No mean feat, when you consider Gaza’s dependence on external aid and the fact that Israel has actively been destroying groves on a large scale since the late 1960s.

Israel continues to decimate the olive industry to this day. Over the last few weeks on TV, we’ve seen Palestinian homes and their groves bulldozed and torched in the West Bank. Meanwhile in Gaza, Israeli forces have destroyed 90% of the 2 million trees growing there before 2023. This is particularly significant considering olive trees are providers of core dietary staples (oil and the fruit), a vital source of income, and carry deep symbolic and cultural meaning.

Genocide

It’s true that cultural destruction by itself does not provide sufficient weight to define a case of genocide under Article II of the Genocide Convention. Neither does causing harm—including the reduction of access to food sources. Intent to kill or harm a population does, and that’s where the focus of legal challenge lies. Those with any moral compass recognise there has never been more documentation, satellite imagery, video footage and corroborated witness testimony (from Palestinian citizens, human rights monitoring organisations, health workers, and even IDF soldiers) to support the argument that there has been clear systematic intent to eradicate a population. Hasbara is no longer working, however much money Israel throws at it. So now the US sanctions and intimidates the International Criminal Court.

The reality is that Gaza’s olive trees are having their toughest time yet. White phosphorous and other munition-related contaminants have destroyed over 95% of all agricultural land. What’s left now of the groves are either located behind ever-encroaching no-go areas, or exist as tiny patches of land tended by farmers for family survival. Believe it or not, there are some chinks of hope, but I’ll save that for the book.