Gaza olive harvest collapses after orchards are destroyed and mills shut down
A major olive harvest in Gaza has been sharply reduced after orchards were destroyed and access to farmland was blocked, according to the supplied report. The disruption has left many growers with only a fraction of their usual crop and has cut local olive oil production to a small share of normal levels. The situation is centred on farmland in central Gaza, where one family says its long-established grove has been devastated.
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The report says farmer Haidar Abu Middain, 60, expects to collect enough olives for only two drums of oil this season. Before the destruction, his family's 90-hectare property produced about 1,500 tonnes of olives, with enough oil to fill up to 900 16-litre drums. He said only 20 to 30 trees remain standing on the land, and that the harvest from them would not even meet his family's own needs.
Across Gaza, the report estimates this season's olive harvest at about 5,000 tonnes, compared with the usual 40,000 tonnes. Olive oil output is expected to fall to 700 tonnes, down from about 5,000 tonnes in a normal year. The shortage has also pushed the price of a barrel of olive oil to almost $500 in local markets, while the number of operating olive presses has dropped from 40 to seven.
The collapse matters because olives have long been one of Gaza's most important agricultural products and a staple of the local diet. The report says olive oil was traditionally produced in quantities large enough to cover local consumption, with a small surplus exported to Israel. The groves also served as shaded spaces around Gaza's urban areas, making them both an economic asset and part of the territory's rural landscape.
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The article places the damage in the context of the year since the ceasefire that ended the main fighting in Gaza. It says almost all olive groves were levelled by bulldozers after that point, leaving farmers with damaged land and far less capacity to process what remains. The reduction in mills and harvest volumes suggests the effects are not limited to one farm but extend across the wider agricultural sector.
What remains unclear from the report is how quickly damaged orchards could recover, or whether farmers will be able to restore enough production to meet local demand. It is also not clear how many other growers face the same level of loss, or whether any wider reconstruction effort is under way. For now, the immediate picture is of a harvest that has been reduced to a small fraction of normal output, with prices and processing capacity both under strain.
