Burin - Olive harvest
All our dreams were fulfilled today, during this olive harvesting. An outdoor picnic with excellent company and a task that proceeded in a wonderfully pleasant way. Yitzhar settlers, whose houses are visible from D. grove, did not appear. The only disappointment was this year’s meager harvest.
D. preparing the spicy tomato salad before placing it in the grove’s metal oven. The result: a delicious Palestinian matbukha.
The entire menu comes from D. own crops: A green ful omelet, eggplants, green and black olives, and much more, and finally wonderful ripe figs.
Such generosity, such joy and laughter accompanied the meal. Among the harvesters and diners was a famous wedding singer, renowned throughout the West Bank: Mu’id el Burini (center), whose singing we all enjoyed. I gladly clapped with the others without understanding a word. It was possible for a moment to forget the dreadful circumstances we all find ourselves in, but we had that painful conversation as well. El Burini described the increasing restrictions on Palestinian movement through their own land. I was particularly saddened that he later felt it necessary to apologize to us for dampening everyone’s spirits.
M. is studying English and Hebrew at Al Najah University in Nablus and intends to study International Relations. There are only 17 students of Hebrew at the university, learning to read but not to speak.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to introduce them. My son speaks Arabic very well. The idea was for them to teach each other – he’d teach her Hebrew, she’d teach him Arabic, over the phone. Both of them speak English very well; they’ll be sure not to lose their way.
Burin (Yitzhar)
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Burin (Yitzhar)
This is a Palestinian village in the Nablus governorate, a little south of Nablus, on the main road passing through the West Bank. The settlements: Yitzhar and Har Bracha, settled in locations that surrounded the village, placed fences so it is cut off the main road.
There are around 4000 inhabitants. Most of them are engaged in agriculture and pasture, although many graduates of the two secondary schools continue to study at the university. Academic positions are hardly available, they find work as builderd, or leave for the Gulf countries.
The village lands were appropriated several times for the establishment of Israeli settlements and military bases, and as a result, Burin's land and water resources dwindled. lSince 1982, more than 2,000 dunams of village land have been declared "state land" and then transferred to Har Bracha settlement.
Over the past few years and more so since 2017, the villagers have been terrorized by the residents of Yitzhar and Har Bracha, the Givat Ronen outpost and others. Despite the close proximity of soldiers to an IDF base close to one of the village's schools, residents are suffering from numerous stone-throwing events, vehicle and fire arson, also reported in the press.
In 2023, the prevention of the olive harvest in the village plot was more violent than ever. Soldiers and settlers walked with drawn weapons between the houses of the village and demanded that people stop harvesting in the village itself and in the private plots outside the village. The settlers from Yitzhar and Giv'at Roned raided the olive groves and stole crops. 300 olive trees belonging to the residents of Burin, near Yitzhar, were uprooted. The loss of livelihood from the olives causes long-term economic damage to the farmers' families, bringing them to the point of starvation.
(updated for November 2023)
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