Palestinian Farmers Defy Repeated Attacks to Hold on to Their Land

Palestinian farmers in the village of Burin are rebuilding their greenhouses and restoring damaged farmland after repeated attacks by Israeli settlers and military operations.

Ghassan Najjar, a member of the Burin Land and Farming Cooperative, said farmers have chosen to defend their connection to the land through agricultural work rather than confrontation.

The cooperative’s five greenhouses were destroyed in July after a group of Israeli settlers reportedly entered the area. According to the cooperative, the attackers removed plastic coverings and damaged irrigation systems, causing losses estimated at about 30,000 shekels ($10,000) in plastic materials alone.

The cooperative had also purchased about 9,000 tomato seedlings on the day of the attack. Worth approximately 8,000 shekels ($2,670), the seedlings died because farmers had nowhere to plant them after the greenhouses were destroyed.

The cooperative, which brings together about 25 families, has also suffered damage to farmland and crops. Najjar said more than 1,500 olive and other trees were recently burned, cut down or uprooted.

Farmers also lost much of their wheat harvest. Of the 10,000 square metres planted, approximately 7,000 square metres were burned before the crop could be harvested.

Najjar said many areas of Burin's farmland are now classified as closed military zones, with the restrictions frequently renewed. He argued that although the orders are officially issued for security reasons, they have heavily restricted Palestinian landowners.

According to figures cited from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, 1,418 settler attacks resulting in casualties or property damage were recorded across the occupied West Bank during the first seven months of the year. The figure puts 2026 on course to surpass the 1,836 attacks recorded in 2025.

Despite the repeated destruction, the farmers continue returning to their land.

Najjar described their approach as the “Tom and Jerry Programme”, referring to the famous cartoon.

“We go to the land early every morning,” he said. “When the army comes, we run away. And when the army goes, we come back again.”

He said farmers sometimes visit their land simply to drink coffee, emphasizing that they will not abandon it.

Building food sovereignty

Najjar founded the Burin Land and Farming Cooperative in March 2020. What began with five members has grown to about 25 farmers, including 17 women, who collectively cultivate roughly 25,000 square metres of land.

The cooperative aims to do more than produce and sell vegetables. Its members describe agriculture as both an economic activity and a means of maintaining Palestinian communities' connection to their land.

About 15 percent of the cooperative's income is returned to the village to support programmes for children and women. The cooperative has also helped families grow food on their own land rather than simply providing them with free produce.

For Najjar, this represents genuine food sovereignty.

“People who don’t eat from what they’ve grown will never have real freedom,” he said.

New members undergo six months of training in agroecology, soil management and pest control, as well as discussions about the political and economic realities surrounding the occupation.

Najjar said he developed much of the cooperative's vision while he was held in Israeli administrative detention. He spent about a year in prison, including four months in isolation.

During his detention, he said he used the time to write down the cooperative's procedures and objectives.

After his release, he found that the cooperative had continued to grow despite his absence.

“The cooperative is not for us,” Najjar said. “If Ghassan gets arrested, if Ghassan dies, if Ghassan is travelling, the cooperative does not close.”

Refusing to abandon the land

The July incident was reportedly the seventh time the cooperative's greenhouses had been vandalised or destroyed.

Yet the farmers continue rebuilding.

For Najjar, the struggle is fundamentally about dignity and maintaining a connection to the land.

“We connect our dignity to the land,” he said, adding that the real goal of occupation is to make people abandon their connection to their homeland.

Burin lies between Israeli settlements and outposts that Palestinians say have expanded in recent months. Residents say the growing presence of settlers and military restrictions has made farming increasingly difficult.

Still, the cooperative continues working and plans to rebuild the damaged greenhouses while installing additional fencing in an effort to protect the farms from future attacks.

“We prefer to die on our land rather than accept another Nakba,” Najjar said.

For the farmers of Burin, returning to the fields has become an act of perseverance, identity and resistance in the face of repeated destruction.