Delayed by war, Gaza's olive harvest is too little, too late, say farmers
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Transcript
00:00 A race against time to save what little they can, as olive farmers in Gaza take advantage
00:05 of the truce between Israel and Hamas to start their harvest, weeks behind schedule.
00:11 Most have stayed away from their groves, fearful of being mistaken for Hamas militants and
00:16 targeted by Israeli forces.
00:18 "Since the war, we've been unable to come.
00:22 Many olives have fallen without being picked.
00:25 Thank God there's been this truce so that we can come pick them."
00:30 The weeks of massive Israeli bombardment and ground invasion that have killed at least
00:34 15,000 Palestinians have also severely damaged Gaza's olive groves.
00:40 Many farmers say this year's haul is too little, too late.
00:44 "We usually collect 12 times what we have now.
00:47 This war has destroyed us.
00:49 There's hardly any production.
00:50 The majority of the harvest has been wasted."
00:54 Most of the harvest is usually pressed into olive oil.
00:58 But with fuel, and thus electricity, extremely scarce, that too has become exceedingly difficult.
01:05 "When the truce began, we didn't know if we were going to work.
01:09 The olive press needs electricity and there is no electricity, meaning we had to find
01:13 fuel and finding fuel is a crisis that everyone is facing."
01:19 Gaza normally produces some 30,000 tons of olives each year, a key economic lifeline
01:26 in one of the world's most impoverished and overcrowded enclaves.