Abu Hassan’s life began and ended among olive trees that carried the story of his family’s survival. Born in 1950, just two years after his parents were displaced by the 1948 war, he grew up in Deir Istiya, a village in the northern West Bank where his family tried to rebuild their lives. They planted groves of olive trees near Kafr Qara, raised livestock, and passed the land down like a living inheritance. For Abu Hassan, those trees, and the cane carved from their wood that once belonged to his father, symbolized both memory and endurance.
For decades, Abu Hassan took pride in tending his land, but in recent years the struggle to remain there grew unbearable. Local activists say Israeli settlers, some barely teenagers, repeatedly targeted him and his family. They insulted him, beat him, dumped out his food, stormed into his home, and at one point even set their dog loose in the spring his family relied on for drinking water.
When the municipality tried to provide pipes for clean water, settlers allegedly sabotaged them. Despite the hostility, Abu Hassan and his children clung to their land. They chose not to retaliate, knowing that even the smallest act of resistance might be used as a pretext to drive them away.
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