Why Do Palestinian Trees Present A Threat To Israel Now?

Along with Hamas, civilians, women, and children of Palestine, the Palestinian trees seem to pose a security threat to the Israeli regime. This past weekend, in just three days, the Israeli military uprooted 10,000 olive trees in al-Mughayyir village, in the occupied West Bank. Some of the trees were over 100 years old.

The Israeli military’s Central Command Chief Avi Bluth said about the order: “Uprooting the trees was intended to deter everyone. Not just this village, but any village.”

This act of environmental destruction is collective punishment, aimed at destroying Palestinian livelihood and severing Palestinian connection to their land. Palestinians have a deep-rooted connection with their lands and the native vegetation that prominently includes Olive trees, cactus trees, orange trees, and a few other local native vegetation.

Read also: Malnutrition-Linked ‘New Virus’ Emergence In Gaza Raises Concern

Ripping olive trees out of the ground is nothing new to the Israeli military. Since 1967, the Israeli government has uprooted over 800,000 olive trees and bulldozed hundreds of miles of agricultural land in Palestine. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians rely on the olive harvest for income.

On Aug 23, Israeli forces uprooted olive trees in al-Mughayyir near Ramallah. Since 2023, over 2.3M trees have been destroyed in Gaza & the West Bank—destroying Palestinian food security. The UN declared famine in Gaza on Aug 22. (Video: Palestinian Farmers Union) pic.twitter.com/LtDOXyOeRc

— PAN Asia Pacific (PANAP) (@PANAsiaPacific) August 25, 2025

The Israeli government targets olive trees because they uphold the deep ties Palestinians have to their land. It is argued by academicians that Zionist, by aiming to build a Jewish-only state on stolen Palestinian land, erases Palestinian connection with the land by decimating the landscape, planting non-native trees, and preventing agricultural production. Because Zionist narratives rely on this erasure, olive trees indeed pose a “threat.”

This assault on olive groves in Al-Mughayyir comes in the midst of increased Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank, both carried out by the Israeli military and settlers. The removal of the lands from vegetatio is considered as an attempt to change the history, geography and cartography by the Israel

The deep connection of olive trees is also reflected in poems and Palestinian literature. Mahmoud Darwish’s poem the Second Olive Tree reflects the connection between olives and Palestinian admirations and history.

The Second Olive Tree

By Mahmoud Darwish

(Translated by Marilyn Hacker)

The olive tree does not weep and does not laugh. The olive tree

Is the hillside’s modest lady. Shadow

Covers her single leg, and she will not take her leaves off in front of the storm.

Standing, she is seated, and seated, standing.

She lives as a friendly sister of eternity, neighbor of time

That helps her stock her luminous oil and

Forget the invaders’ names, except the Romans, who

Coexisted with her, and borrowed some of her branches

To weave wreaths. They did not treat her as a prisoner of war

But as a venerable grandmother, before whose calm dignity

Swords shatter. In her reticent silver-green

Color hesitates to say what it thinks, and to look at what is behind

The portrait, for the olive tree is neither green nor silver.

The olive tree is the color of peace, if peace needed

A color. No one says to the olive tree: How beautiful you are!

But: How noble and how splendid! And she,

She who teaches soldiers to lay down their rifles

And re-educates them in tenderness and humility: Go home

And light your lamps with my oil! But

These soldiers, these modern soldiers

Besiege her with bulldozers and uproot her from her lineage

Of earth. They vanquished our grandmother who foundered,

Her branches on the ground, her roots in the sky.

She did not weep or cry out.  But one of her grandsons

Who witnessed the execution threw a stone

At a soldier, and he was martyred with her.

After the victorious soldiers

Had gone on their way, we buried him there, in that deep

Pit – the grandmother’s cradle. And that is why we were

Sure that he would become, in a little while, an olive

Tree – a thorny olive tree – and green!