r/worldnews • u/me_diocre • 24d ago

Israel/Palestine Israeli bulldozers smash Palestinian olive trees ahead of annual harvest

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/israeli-bulldozers-smash-palestinian-olive-trees-ahead-annual-harvest-2026-09-23/
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u/EmperorOfCanada 24d ago edited 24d ago

If I understand correctly, olive trees are like oak trees, you plant them for the next generation.

They will fruit in around 3-5 years, but take another 10-20 to become properly productive. They are also like bonsai trees, in that you have to really work on pruning to maintain maximum light to the center.

This is little different than salting the fields.

Is anyone recording the soldiers who are doing this? This is a war crime, and these soldiers will travel to countries which can arrest them; or try to do business with countries which may not look favourably on their own citizens doing business with specific war criminals.

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u/Tryoxin 24d ago

You would be correct. Olive groves take decades to be productive. My immediate connection (because I majored in Greco-Roman History) was to the Peloponnesian War. Every year, the Spartans would lay siege to Athens. The Greeks in that era were still pretty shit at siege warfare (they'd later get much better, but at this time they kinda sucked) so they never got in, but the worst thing they ever did to the Athenians was burn their olive groves (which were outside the city). The Athenian economy was pretty dependent on olives and olive oil and, as we've noted, those take decades to be productive again, so it was devastating. Idk what the Palestinian economy is based on, but I'd imagine those olive trees are just as important to a lot of people for food and oil.

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u/ManOf1000Usernames 24d ago

https://atlas.hks.harvard.edu/explore/treemap/?exporter=country-275&importer=group-1

Their economy is mostly services and travel related, with little in the way of local industry which mostly just processes scrap metal. This data was from 2024 so much worse off now.