The Zaytoun team have spent the past few weeks in Palestine; visiting our partners and friends and picking olives. The 2006 olive harvest is a bountiful crop so we were delighted that so many people came with us to Palestine this year.

Our harvest team split into three groups. One team went to Az-Zawiyya village in the Salfit district, where there have been problems with land access and settlers, another went to Marda, a village we have been to three years running now, which is slowly being surrounded on all sides by the Israeli separation wall and a road fence. And the third team went to the Nablus district. Our teams were accompanying farmers to their groves; to stand by them, support them and witness their situation. To read more about the team’s experiences please visit our journal on here.

The trip was one that brought both inspiration and heartbreak; enjoying the amazing hospitality of the people of Palestine and sharing their pain in horrors that Israel places on them and the International Community are complicit in.

It has given us greater resolve to use Zaytoun as a vehicle to bring some support to Palestine. Zaytoun markets products from Palestine in the UK – our primary product is olive oil and we are also bringing over cous cous from Gaza, almonds from Jenin, dates from the Jordan Valley and soap from Nablus. Please visit our website for more information at: http://www.zaytoun.org/

Thanks,
The Zaytoun Harvest Team

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