| Dear Friend,
Tonight marks the beginning of Tu Bishvat, the Jewish New Year of the Trees - a time that calls for renewal, responsibility, and the protection of land and the people who depend on it. We chose to mark this moment as a call to action and a reminder that Israelis and Palestinians can, and must, stand together to protect livelihoods and resist dispossession, settler terrorism and incitement.
On Friday, activists from Combatants for Peace and Bnei Abraham gathered to support a Palestinian organic farm located in the heart of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc. The family has lived and farmed this land for more than 200 years. Today, they are the only Palestinian farming family left in the area, surrounded by settlements, outposts, and a growing pattern of settler violence, intimidation, and land takeover. | | In recent years, and especially since the beginning of the war, the family’s life and livelihood have been systematically undermined. Roads leading to their land and grazing areas are frequently and arbitrarily closed, making farming and herding impossible, and settler harassment and attacks have made access unsafe. As a result, the family was forced to give up their animals and shut down their small restaurant, which once served food grown directly from their fields. Palestinians are now afraid to reach the area at all.
The farm is no longer connected to the electricity grid, another form of infrastructural deprivation common in Area C. To continue functioning, the family installed solar panels out of necessity. This is not resilience by choice - it is survival under unrelenting pressure.
Around 40 people joined the action on Friday, traveling from Qalqiliya, Bethlehem, Ramallah, Nablus, Haifa, Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. We worked side by side, planting olive and apple trees, clearing stones from the fields to allow future planting, and cleaning the surrounding land. We shared lunch prepared by the family, briefly reopening the space that once welcomed visitors and sustained livelihoods. | | Tu Bishvat is traditionally associated with the seven species - wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, and dates - foods that have sustained communities for generations. These species are more than cultural symbols: they are the backbone of livelihoods, nourishment, and life itself. When trees are uprooted, fields blocked, and farmers driven from their land, it is not just the harvest that is lost - it is the right to food, to work, to safety, and to dignity. Protecting the land means protecting these fundamental human rights.
More than anything, Friday was about being together. Palestinians and Israelis. Muslims, Christians, Jews and people of all faiths and none. Working collectively to protect a community under threat and to say clearly: settler terrorism is not inevitable, and silence is not an option.
As Tu Bishvat begins tonight, we are reminded that protecting land means protecting people - and that solidarity, when practiced together, can still take root even in the most hostile conditions.
In peace & solidarity, |
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