Lebanon’s lost olive season: harvesting olives under drones and warplanes

Beirut, Lebanon – Every year, Khaled Farhat tends to his olive trees in the southern village of Majdel Selm, a task carried out year after year amid the din of war.“I own an olive grove with about 200 trees. I tend to them in my spare time whenever I’m not on duty at the school,” he told Al Jazeera by phone.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Suspected Israeli online operations cause alarm in Iran and Lebanonlist 2 of 3Division in Lebanon over Hezbollah’s confiscated explosiveslist 3 of 3Hezbollah funding plan indicates a new challenge to Lebanon’s governmentend of listThis year, reaching his olive grove, which is just a 20-minute drive from the border with Israel, is more complicated due to the ongoing Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. His town of Majdel Selm lies just north of Israel’s “Yellow Line”, below which the Israeli military is demolishing homes and local infrastructure.To reach his land, Farhat said, he had to request access from his local municipality, which forwarded the request to the Lebanese Army. The army then coordinates with a mechanism established after June’s Tripartite Framework Agreement between the United States, Israel and Lebanon to get per...