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Significant Loss of Palestinian Olive Trees
During the ongoing olive harvest season, Israeli forces and settlers have uprooted or damaged approximately 4,500 olive trees in the occupied West Bank within a single month. Total destruction in the West Bank has reached roughly 100,000 olive trees since January. In the Gaza Strip, an estimated 97 percent of the territory's two million olive trees have been destroyed since October 2023. Historical figures show that over 800,000 olive trees were destroyed between 1967 and the 2010s.
Water Access and Ecosystem Changes
Agricultural capacity and local ecosystems have been significantly impacted by long-standing resource management policies. Israel's national water enterprise, Mekorot, manages a distribution system that channels water away from Palestinian towns toward Israeli settlements, routinely cutting off supplies to Palestinian residents during summer periods. Furthermore, agricultural land has suffered from soil erosion, pesticide application, and vegetation fires.
Severe Soil and Water Contamination in Gaza
Military actions in Gaza have resulted in critical environmental degradation across the region:
- An estimated 85 percent of all buildings in Gaza have been destroyed.
- Dismantled structures have produced about 70 million tonnes of toxic rubble.
- Soil and groundwater have been contaminated with explosive compounds such as TNT, RDX, and perchlorates, as well as heavy metals including lead, cadmium, arsenic, tungsten, and aluminium.
- Continuous bulldozing has removed organic topsoil needed for cultivation, damaging the land's long-term agricultural viability.