Every year, Khaled Shamlawi harvests olives from his small grove of dozens of trees a few hundred meters from his home in the West Bank village of Haris, near the city-settlement of Ariel south of Nablus.

The sale of the fruit typically earns him around NIS 5,000 ($1,700) annually, he estimated, a modest but not inconsequential supplement to his income in a place where the average monthly wage is around NIS 3,100 ($1,000).

But about a month and a half ago, soldiers from the Israel Defense Forces uprooted around 20 of his trees, some of them centuries old, which were situated near a road. The move destroyed a significant part of his grove.

Several weeks earlier, a Defense Ministry representative had visited Shamlawi to let him know the trees would be removed. The reason: stones had been thrown at cars on the road, which is used by both Israelis and Palestinians. The trees had provided the assailants with cover, the Israeli charged.

“I told him that wasn’t true, that this is our land — we don’t allow anyone to come there and cause trouble,” said Shamlawi. “He wasn’t convinced.”

Shamlawi’s trees are already separated from the road by a fence installed by the IDF some 20 years ago, he said. He suggested to the man that another fence be built instead of pulling out the trees, but to no avail.

Across the West Bank, according to Palestinians and human rights organizations assisting them, similar uprootings are taking place, part of what appears to be a growing trend of the IDF removing Palestinians’ trees on security grounds, though critics say these are often unjustified.

“There has never been anything like this before. It’s a bonkers increase,” said activist Dror Etkes of the Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, which researches Israeli land policy in the West Bank.

He told The Times of Israel he had collected dozens of orders mandating tree uprootings under security grounds since the end of 2025.

According to Etkes, the practice was used only sparingly in past years.

The removals come on top of similar actions undertaken for years by the Civil Administration, the Defense Ministry unit that manages civilian affairs for the West Bank, which has removed thousands of trees to clear the way for settlement expansions or roads.

However, the Civil Administration only uproots trees on state lands, while the IDF’s campaign has also targeted groves on private Palestinian property.

The IDF declined to answer questions from The Times of Israel regarding how many orders it had issued to clear away trees in recent years and whether there has indeed been an increase in their number. Palestinians and activists claim the rise has been dramatic.

Aviv Tatarsky, an activist with the dovish Ir Amim organization who assists Palestinians in the West Bank, told The Times of Israel that he estimates that in recent months, more than 1,000 trees belonging to residents of Haris and neighboring Kifl Haris and Deir Istiya have been uprooted, apparently by the IDF.

Shamlawi said he was one of about 30 residents of Haris who received similar notices in March, warning that trees near the road would be uprooted.

A resident of Deir Istiya, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, told The Times of Israel that on May 7 the army uprooted 30 olive trees from land he owns near a road.

According to him, two weeks before the uprooting, representatives of the IDF and the Civil Administration informed him that trees from his plot adjacent to the main road leading to the village would be removed.

Residents are not told when the removals will take place; Shamlawi said he only learned the work had begun when he saw bulldozers uprooting his olive trees.

While he and others were approached about the planned uprootings ahead of time, not all landowners are. Because the IDF actions are carried out via military order, there are fewer requirements regarding informing landowners.

Notices are not published publicly, but instead placed on the plot........

© The Times of Israel