Last Tuesday, at exactly 11:30 A.M., a 75-year-old Palestinian woman, Sumiya Hader Abdullah, stood at the gate that separates her village - Deir al-Ghusun, close to the West bank town of Tul Karm - from her olive orchard on the other side of the security fence. The precise time is crucial, because the gate is opened only three times a day, and even this is a special concession for the harvest season. Farmers have to manage to go to the orchard and return, and the examination of permits can be time-consuming.

Abdullah was tired and sad. Tired because her workday of processing the olives began, like every day of the olive harvest, at 5 A.M., right after the first Muslim prayer of the morning; sad because the army patrol road along the fence was paved on land expropriated from her, land that until recently was part of her olive grove, which is her entire universe. "It feels terrible," she said. "This earth is burning under my feet. Two hundred trees were destroyed, all of them fruitful."

How many trees does she have left? She does not answer the question. Just as some people refuse to say how many children they have - in order not to tempt fate - there are those who do not count olive trees. Abdullah has no children: olive trees are her whole world. Despite her age, she spends hours hunched over on the ground, gathering the olives one by one. The ones on the trees she cannot pick by herself, and needs to hire workers, but not all of them are able to get the special permit to pass through the security fence.

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The backdrop to the conversation with this woman was utterly surreal. Armed Israeli soldiers, dozens of United Nations vehicles which have come to this pastoral location to examine the situation on the ground, donkeys loaded with sacks, and farmers hurrying back to the village at the designated time the gate is opened, mingle in an unnatural scene. Since the fence has separated them from their lands, this is the way it is during the olive harvest, the most important season for Palestinian farmers. In the middle of the orchard, the Palestinian governor of the Tul Karm district, the adviser to the Palestinian minister of agriculture and the head of the district department of agriculture have sharp things to say.

That is the way it is in the olive-harvest season, in a year of particularly fine yields. But the produce does not compensate for the collapse of the Palestinian economy, and for the terrible poverty. On Tuesday, personnel of OCHA, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, came for an organized field trip.

Quality depends on speed

An official UN position paper recognizes the special importance of olive cultivation in the Palestinian economy, and announces the allocation of $1 million to support the olive industry and help facilitate access of Palestinians to their groves. On the subject of the olive harvest in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the paper describes the process of olive-oil production, and emphasizes that the quality of the oil is to a great extent dependent on how rapidly the olives can be brought from the tree to the oil press. In this context, the paper openly criticizes Israel for the limitations on travel [of Palestinians], the security barrier and the closures, which "raise concerns over the ability of Palestinian farmers to complete this process [of oil production]."

The report determines that "500 physical obstacles and 703 kms of fence make it difficult for the farmers to harvest the olives. Estimates indicate that 85,000 dunams [over 21,000 acres] of olive groves, about one million trees, will be inaccessible or subject to limited access once the security barrier is completed." However, the UN is not the only body that has been drawn into the matter. In June of this year, the High Court of Justice discussed the difficulties of accessibility, and the attacks on Palestinian olive-pickers by Jewish settlers, and ruled that "the protection of the personal security and property of local [Palestinians] is the responsibility of the [Israeli] army commander on the spot." Minister of Defense, Amir Peretz, instructed the IDF to provide suitable protection to the olive-pickers.

According to UN data, there are some nine million olive trees within the territory of the Palestinian Authority, representing 22 percent of all Palestinian agricultural production. But these are just numbers. For the farmers of Deir al-Ghusun, this is their whole world, and the basis of their livelihood is collapsing. Olives are far more than this, however. It is not just the cliche of the deep connection between the Palestinian and his olive tree: It is true love.

"It's the tree of my country," says Aiman Jabara, 25, with pride, hunched on the ground with a handful of olives he has gathered. "This tree is like Palestine. Even if you burn it, it will grow again. I love the olive. I love to touch it. It's hard work. Picking one tree takes two hours. But that is our heritage and our tradition."

Tabath Badran, principal of the local school, uses more poetic language: "The olive is like light, it is life, it is peace. Olives are like children." His companion elaborately praises the olive tree as a role model. "It survives under all conditions," he says, almost enviously. "It has patience, it needs very little, and it knows how to make do with very little."

The Palestinians, too, are now learning to make do with very little. The severance from sources of livelihood in Israel, and the inability of the Palestinian Authority to pay its employees their salaries, have condemned tens of thousands to abject poverty. What is left, for the most part, is agriculture, but that, too, is being undermined. Permits to go out to work in the olive groves beyond the security fence are given sparingly, and work that was once shared by all members of the family now falls entirely on the shoulders of those who can get a permit.

No luxury goods

In the past, there were five oil presses in Deir al-Ghusun. Three closed because of the intifada and the difficulties it brought in its wake. Arnold Vercken is the country director (Palestinian territories) of the UN Food Program, and responsible for distributing food to non-refugees (the refugees are cared for by UNRWA). During a visit to the village, he relates that his office was prepared to provide food packages for 480,000 people in 2006, but the circle of poverty has widened to 600,000.

There are no luxury goods. A food package includes flour, sugar, salt and olive oil (which is bought from the Palestinian farmers themselves). "They don't have normal marketing facilities, so we fill that need as well," says Vercken, who grew up in Provence, but owns a prestigious oil press in Tuscany. He expertly rolls the locally pressed oil over his tongue, and pronounces that it "has potential."

He finds less potential in the Palestinians' economic situation. "The circle of poverty and hunger is widening," he warns. "We enrich the products we distribute in the food packages with vitamins and minerals, in order to prevent the dangers of malnourishment. The 600,000 people who need our food packages are the poorest of the poor, whose very survival depends on us. In reality, there are many more poor and hungry."

A prognosis of the World Bank (which has also been drawn into the Palestinian olive-oil issue) notes a number of characteristics that can give Palestinian olive oil an edge on the world market: its attractive Holy Land origin, its quality and the increasing demand for organic products.

The recommendations section of the World Bank document notes, among other things, that the successful marketing of Palestinian olive oil is dependent on the cooperation of the Israeli authorities: ensuring access to the olive groves, protecting farmers against attacks by settlers, and easing regulations to make efficient and timely exports possible. "Israel has significant and justifiable security concerns," writes the World Bank, "but it must protect its security while also ensuring that legitimate businessmen can easily travel and export their products without unnecessary delays." Put differently: The olive, whose branch is a symbol of peace, is itself in need of peace. Meanwhile, it must content itself with radio spots of the Yesh Din organization for human rights, with its call for allowing the Palestinians to complete their olive harvest in peace.