‘No work and no olives’: harvest rots as West Bank farmers cut off from trees

Shaadi Saleh surveys olive groves at the village of as-Sawiya: ‘For me, my olive trees and my sons are … all my children.’ Photograph: Jason Burke/The Guardian

Shaadi, Isa and Mahmud Saleh look out across the valley, bite their nails, wring their hands and worry. There is no work locally and travelling to find any is almost impossible because of restrictions imposed by Israel on the occupied West Bank after the 7 October attacks by Hamas that killed more than 1,200 people. The main road into their village has been almost entirely blocked. Their debts are mounting up.

“There has never been anything like this,” says Isa, 73. “Life is not normal.”