Olive planting program

The JAI-ATG Olive Planting Program, part of the JAI Olive Tree Campaign, lasts for 10 days in February each year, where people of any age and background from all over the world can join.

Participants are given the opportunity to listen to Palestinian farmers’ stories of how their properties are threatened by settlers, the Apartheid Wall, bypass roads or Israeli settlement expansions.

They plant a selection of the trees sponsored that season, usually 4 fields with approximately 400 olive trees in each.

In addition to planting, the participants get a chance to visit the Palestinian towns of Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Hebron and Ramallah. They also meet with Palestinian organizations that provide information on conflict-related issues.

Olive Planting Program 3-12 February 2018

Category: Olive planting program
Created: 12 February 2018

See more photos of the program

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planting2018 t3Participants from 8 various countries have joined this year's Olive Planting Program, ran by the JAI and ATG from the 3rd to the 12th of February 2018.

The program included the planting internationally sponsored olive trees at Palestinian threatened fields in various villages surrounded by expanding Israeli colonies within the West Bank. In each of the four planting day within the program, the participants planted around 200 olive trees, and in one of the days joined by a delegation from Embrace the Middle East – UK - they planted 450 trees.

Guided tours and visits were also organized to witness the Israeli apartheid wall, colonies, settlers' bypass roads, old cities of Bethlehem and Hebron and Jerusalem, as well as the closed streets and Ibrahimi mosque in Hebron, and with an Israeli human rights activists in Jerusalem. This is besides the various presentations during some afternoons and most evenings on key issues related to Palestinians life under occupation and international advocacy campaigns for peace with justice in Palestine.

Participants had the chance to listen to farmers and their families' stories, their suffering at their fields and with their trees, and the various measures they are subjected to. Such stories, other information they learned, and experience they had, they will take with them and share back at their countries and get involved in actions and campaigns for Palestine.

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