For Palestinians, the land holds memory, livelihood, and knowledge passed through generations. Even under occupation, that relationship persists. To farm the land and remain attached to it is a refusal to be erased.

Following the October 2025 ceasefire, travel to the West Bank became possible in late December for the first time in two years and opened a brief window to visit a grassroots farming initiative in Jayyus. In partnership with the Palestinian Farmers’ Union, Treedom for Palestine works with farmers to strengthen food security, protect land, and support sustainable livelihoods, with a focus on community knowledge, environmental stewardship, and women’s leadership.

But in that same week—from December 23 to 29—more than 8,000 olive trees were allegedly uprooted by Israeli forces, and Palestinian neighborhoods near Bethlehem were destroyed during what is usually the city’s busiest season. Since 2003, the West Bank has been encircled by a 30-foot-high illegal segregation wall, stretching hundreds of miles and intersected by a network of military checkpoints, making the West Bank one of the most militarized civilian environments in the world and fragmenting land and life.

Palestinians have lived on and cared for this land for thousands of years. That bond is unbroken. Even now, the land remains more than a site of conflict: It is an ongoing relationship between people and place. In every tree replanted and every field tended, that relationship endures.

Olive Trees Waiting for Us

They are not merely trees, as you might think

They are what remains of us

After we left.

In Nablus

Branches hang like open arms

Not calling out loudly

Yet they know the absent

One by one

As if they never lost anyone.

In Gaza

The trees count the sounds of the night

Guarding a table

That holds more absent ones than present ones

Waiting for warm bread

That no missile will tear apart

Waiting for the sea

To learn how to forget

In Ramallah

The olive tree writes Its letters

On sheets of light

Never sending them

Only leaving them In the air

In case someone remembers the road

When it is lost

In Hebron

Roots cling to stone

Not out of fear of falling

But fear that memory might be uprooted,

And they whisper

Here they passed

Here they wept

And here they left their names

So they would not die

In Jenin

The trees do not sleep

They guard faces they know well

Returning them

As light

Walking inside a song

In Zarnouqa

There is no tree to return to,

Yet the olive knows us

As if we never left It

As if the road simply misplaced us.

There

A tree still holds my grandfather Mustafa’s name

Since the year he left

Without closing the door behind him.

And still

It extends its shade a little further each year

As if making space

For his returning step

It knows him

And it knows me

Even though I have never arrived,

As if blood itself

Guided it toward me

The trees here are not silent

They only speak

A slower language

One that takes a lifetime

To understand

The olive tree does not ask: where were you?

It only opens Its arms

Like a mother

Too tired to reproach.

The olive does not only wait for us

Sometimes

It fears we may forget It

More than we fear being lost

Every branch

Reaches out to those

Who crossed borders

And could not find themselves

And says

Come back

We will put you back together

The way a mother

Mends her child’s heart after tears.

The olive knows you

Even if names are forgotten

Bethlehem

Tulkarm

Qalqilya

Jaffa

It knows your steps

Counts them

Like a father counting his children

In the dark

It will keep waiting

Not because time Is long

But because we

Are the ones who are late

It will remain

Until Gaza sits

At a table without fear

Until Nablus heals

From the ache of its roads

Until the land opens Its windows

And nothing enters

But light

It is not only a homeland we carry

But a homeland

That carries us

When we are tired

And the olive has become a homeland

Every time we try to leave It

It grows inside us