As olive trees entered their annual bearing cycle this autumn, Haaretz’s editorial board issued a blunt assessment: harvest season has become, for many West Bank Palestinians, the most dangerous time of the year. The editorial frames a familiar seasonal pattern—attacks on farmers, vandalism of orchards and seizures of land—as an intensifying phenomenon tied to the broader security and political fallout since the October 7 attacks and the ensuing Gaza war.

For Palestinian households in the West Bank, the olive harvest is not merely a cultural ritual but a material lifeline. Agriculture constitutes a meaningful share of rural income and local employment; olives and olive oil provide a substantial portion of tree-crop output and seasonal cash flow for smallholders. Disruptions to harvesting, whether through direct violence, intimidation, or restricted access to fields, translate rapidly into lost income, damaged productive assets and higher transaction costs for marketing and transport. Those losses compound overall economic stress in an economy already grappling with constrained movement, trade frictions and restrictions on investment.

Beyond immediate household impacts, repeated attacks on fields and infrastructure reverberate through local markets. Reduced supply from the West Bank weakens export potential and raises the risk that traders will shift sourcing to other markets, undermining future investment in orchards that require years to restore. The destruction of trees—an asset with long maturation horizons—represents an intergenerational drain on Palestinian productive capacity. For an economy where agriculture remains a stabilizing employer in rural communities, these shocks can accelerate urban migration and deepen dependence on external aid.

The situation also intersects with Israeli domestic politics and international diplomacy. Haaretz’s editorial places responsibility not only on the perpetrators but on the state institutions that permit or fail to prevent such attacks. In Jerusalem, leaders face contrasting pressures: hardline settler constituencies assert influence on the ground, while diplomatic actors abroad, including visiting U.S. delegations, spotlight broader violence tied to Hamas and Gaza. Debates in Washington over military aid and diplomatic posture toward Israel add another layer of uncertainty, with potential implications for how robustly Israeli security forces prioritize protection of Palestinian civilians and enforcement against settler violence.

Economically, the longer the pattern persists, the greater the risk that agricultural value chains will reconfigure away from the West Bank. Short-term market dislocations can harden into chronic declines in productive investment if property rights and access to land are perceived as insecure. That would not only impoverish rural households but also raise the political and security costs for Israel, which bears responsibility for order in territory it controls.

Haaretz’s warning is therefore simultaneously moral and pragmatic: the recurrent targeting of harvests is an assault on livelihoods and a strategic liability. Unless accountability and effective protection improve, the seasonal cycle that once replenished household incomes and local trade may increasingly feed a cycle of economic decline and renewed conflict.