Volunteers from Bristol have spoken of their concerns after deadly attacks in the West Bank, years after they got caught up in violence there themselves. But one of them, who lives in North Bristol, says she still hopes to return this year despite the escalation of tensions.
Helen, who did not wish to use her surname, volunteered during the olive harvest season five consecutive years in a row from 2015-2019. She was part of a group in 2015 that was attacked, but escaped that time without injury. She said another British volunteer who was in her group had to be treated in hospital after several rocks were thrown at his head, as reported at the time.
In the past few weeks there have been settler attacks on villages following on from a week of violence, which began on February 22 when the Israeli military was reported to have killed 11 Palestinians and injured more than 100 in the city of Nablus. The raid was understood to be the deadliest since 2005.
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Helen understands that she is at risk but feels going to the village on the edge of Nablus for two weeks every year is a small sacrifice, in comparison to the risk her friends in the village face every day. Helen said: "It's obviously scary and it's getting worse and worse but when you go there, you build a relationship with people.
"We go there for two weeks but they face the violence all the time. They are friends now and they've been so kind and welcoming towards us so naturally you want to help your friends," explained Helen, who is part of a charity which supports Palestinian farmers and schools.
A chicken shed built by the charity volunteers there was burned down in the latest Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian villages on February 26. According to AP news agency, the series of violent attacks and arsons that day happened after two settlers were killed by a Palestinian gunman.
UN figures suggest the Palestinian death toll in 2022 was the highest in almost two decades, and this continues in 2023 - it has been reported that as of February 26, at least 29 Palestinians had been killed this year, a figure higher than this time the previous year.
Volunteers from Bristol have now spoken of their first-hand experiences of violence in 2015 and 2019. Sue Jones from Redland, who was struck with a crowbar to her back when out picking olives back in 2019, fears the village is even more dangerous now with the escalation of violence over the last few years. She said she feels guilty because she is too scared to return to the village that has recently been torched.
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“I was fortunate, I only got hit on the back once, my colleague broke a toe because they threw a rock at him and the rabbi broke his arm and needed several stitches. I’d love to go out there again and I will one way or another but I’m not sure if I can go to the same villages for olive picking because of the inevitability of death or a serious injury,” explains Sue.
The 65-year-old, who said she has always been a supporter of Palestinian human rights, visited the West Bank with The Olive Harvest Trust in 2019 for what was meant to be a two-week trip. But being in the centre of a brutal, violent attack left her so shaken up and traumatised that she left after a few days and has never returned since.
Sue said she was out picking olives that day with four other Olive Harvest Trust volunteers, three Jewish American students who had visited to learn about Palestine, and an Israeli rabbi from Rabbis for Human Rights. She said her injuries could have been worse if she hadn’t begged one of the masked mob, who she said appeared to be a teenage boy, to have mercy on her.
Recalling the traumatic experience, she said: “We heard them running down, they had rocks and crowbars and I got hit on the back. The young American guy shouted, 'they've got my head, it's bleeding’. Then they got the young American girl’s legs with a crow bar but she managed to get up and run but the young American boy needed stitches to his head.
“The person who they injured the most was the 80-year-old rabbi, they broke his arm and he needed several stitches...they set alight the olive groves, it was very scary because olive groves contain oil. I wasn’t scared of being burned but the whole situation was terrifying.
“I don’t know at what point they stopped chasing us, I didn’t look back, I just ran, I waited for the next rock on the head or crowbar to the back. But I was fortunate, I only got hit on the back once. My colleague broke a toe because they threw a rock at him. He said to me they were going to do worse but I just begged them not to.
“They cornered him. He felt embarrassed that he begged them but I begged them too. I just looked in this person’s eyes and I thought ‘oh my goodness, I think it’s a young teenager’.
“He’d come up by the side and I was terrified, I begged him not to hit me, I’d admit that to anyone. We just ran and ran until we managed to find a road.
“The farmers helped us down and called an ambulance. The Palestinians came back the next day and they have a permit, they only get a permit at very short notice it’s one of their biggest source of income, they went back were told not to go back without the military. I’ve got footage where they put him in the back of the truck and he came back two hours later and was vomiting because they had beaten him up.”
The attack was reported on at the time by news outlets including the Times of Israel. It quoted a statement from an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank, which blamed the incident on “provocations caused by extreme-left activists".
A talk took place in the Palestine Museum in central Bristol on Saturday, with a speaker from the village where the Olive Harvest Trust is based. The speakers are visiting as part of Fairtrade Fortnight.
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