'We are going to rise again': Lebanon's olive harvest under the press of Israel's war

Charbel Jaoude wanted to "make the desert green". Twelve years ago, when he planted his first Arbequina olive trees in the northern, arid earth of the Bekaa Valley, there was little reason for him to tame his ambitions.

But the best-laid plans often go awry. When he dug wells to water his trees, he was told the water belonged to neighbouring Syria. An involved, but successful, legal battle settled that. Then he needed to buy machinery, but the economy collapsed in 2019, and he lost all his savings. Now there is a war, and the olives need harvesting.

On 23 September, when Israel launched its major offensive, the eastern Bekaa Valley and southern Lebanon were heavily bombed.

A video seen by The New Arab shows columns of smoke rising from the hillside bordering Charbel's olive farm following a series of airstrikes. So, he was forced to start the harvest a month late, meaning he would lose almost half of his crop this year.

"Olive trees have been cultivated in Lebanon for some 6,000 years, long before the Phoenicians introduced them to other parts of the Mediterranean"

If it was too dangerous to work back then, it is not any better now. Last week, a wave of Israeli strikes killed 60 people in a single day in the Bekaa Valley, in what Governor Bachie Khodr described as the "most violent" attacks in the area since Israel intensified its war in Lebanon.

Transporting the freshly pressed oil to Beirut for storage presents further hazards. The road from Beirut to Jdaideh, the small village next to Charbel’s farm, passes through Baalbek, the focal point of Israel’s recent aerial campaign.

The route is littered with destroyed buildings; those still standing have been abandoned. The odd car might be seen rushing through, but only in the morning: locals say the airstrikes tend to start after lunch.

But Charbel could not afford to let the harvest go to waste. "That's why I took the decision and took the risk also. It's a big risk … at night we can hear some bombardment," he told The New Arab.

For the 70 Syrian labourers on his farm, it is a risk too, but it is their only source of income.

The Bekaa Valley has been an important site of agriculture for millennia — at one time, serving as "the grain silos of the Roman Empire".

Olive trees have been cultivated in Lebanon for some 6,000 years, long before the Phoenicians introduced them to other parts of the Mediterranean. It is a small wonder, then, that the Lebanese consider the olives and their harvest part of their national heritage.

In southern Lebanon, the situation is much worse. Israel has issued displacement orders to tens of thousands living in this region, setting as its boundary the Awali River, which runs deep inside Lebanese territory, some 60 kilometres from the border.

Israel claims its campaign is against Hezbollah, but the towns and villages closest to the border have been decimated by thousands of airstrikes. Some villages, like Mhaibib, have been permanently erased. Almost 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since 8 October 2023, most of them in the last few weeks.

In a tweet sent by the IDF’s Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee, he told the Lebanese to "refrain from travelling south and to return to your homes or your olive groves".

Many will not return to their groves while the war lasts, others feel they have no choice.

The south comprises 30 percent of Lebanon's olive groves and some of the country’s oldest millennial trees. After a poor crop last year, this season was set to be a good one, with the trees full and oil expected to fetch $150 for 20 litres. But the war has made most of the groves in the south too dangerous to harvest.

For communities living there, olives are an essential part of the local economy. Some families depend entirely on this crop.

"Everyone has olive trees in the south. Some have 20, some have 100, and some have 1000 trees … there are more than 30,000 families who work and live from olives," said Muhammad al-Husseini, the head of the farmers’ union for southern Lebanon.

He explained that "in the areas on the front, within 15 kilometres [of the border], they cannot harvest olives because the Israeli enemy is targeting everyone, whether civilian or military".

"This is our heritage, our subsistence, and our income" 

But in a few parts of the south a little further from the border, farmers have chosen to remain. "[They] are no longer able to go out to the fields unless they want to take risks. Some have no choice but to take risks," Muhammad said.

The Maronite village of Deir Mimas lies just three kilometres from the border with Israel. It is home to 150,000 olive trees, and its oil is fabled in Lebanon and is exported all over the world.

This year, for the first time in living memory, there will be no olive harvest in Deir Mimas.

Rose Bechara has an olive grove there, and partners with local farmers to sell the village’s oil. Her farming equipment was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike on her warehouse in a nearby village.

Rose expects that the financial loss to Deir Mimas will be around $1 million, but there is an emotional cost, too. "This is our heritage, our subsistence, and our income," she said.

There will be long-term consequences of the war, too. An estimated 60,000 trees were burnt in southern Lebanon from Israeli strikes, according to Minister of Agriculture Abbas Hajj Hassan. Bechara said that badly burnt trees can take "20-30 years to grow again".

Meanwhile, the use of phosphorus bombs has contaminated the soil and water sources, posing a threat to human health. Farmers have been testing their soil to see if they have been affected, and if they have, it is not clear how long phosphorus remains toxic in the soil.

The agriculture sector has been hit hard by the war, compounding the losses to the Lebanese economy. It’s expected that Lebanon’s GDP could shrink by 9.2 percent if the war goes on until the end of the year.

According to a recent UN Development Programme report, the economic fallout is expected to be "much greater" than in the 2006 war, due to the scale of the conflict and its humanitarian impact.

For the farmers displaced by the war there is not much they can do but wait and hope to rebuild when they return to their groves.

But Rose remains defiant. "This land is ours. No one is going to take it; we're going to rise again."

Alex Martin Astley is a freelance journalist based in Beirut, covering conflict, foreign policy, and social justice issues

Follow him on X: @AlexMartin6190