Supporting the vulnerable farmers affected in area C by and prone to settler violence for sustained and improved livelihood Palestinian farmers face many hardships including access to resources and hostilities from settlers and Israeli Occupation practices. Nearly 63% of farming land is in area C, and with the continued Israeli restrictions to land, water, and the increased settler attacks of farmers, their land and livelihood assets, puts them at great risk of loss of land and forced displacement, and hence livelihoods. The continued expansion of illegal Israeli settlements results in a furthered worsened humanitarian situation for farmers and families in Area C. The humanitarian situation for farmers in the targeted areas has been declining for many years, weakening their resilience, and with the onset of a disaster, farming families use depleting negative coping strategies in order to maintain their livelihood and afford basic commodities.

Farmers in Area C are among the most vulnerable particularly, demolitions and forced evictions deprive people of their homes and disrupt livelihoods, leading to entrenched poverty and increased aid dependency. They are further confronted by settler violence with the Ministry of Agriculture’s Agriculture Damage Documentation Department indicating that between 2017 and 2018 there have been over 400 occupational agriculture attacks on vulnerable populations, including farmers and their livelihood assets. In 2017 alone 255 cases have been officially registered with many still pending verification and entry into the database of the MoA. The value of the destructive assets has, since 2017, so far, exceeded 3 million USD. Assault for 2018 are expected to increase during the olive picking season which has seen an uptrend in assault by Israeli settlers, especially in the Nablus Governorate.

ESDC has implemented two similar projects in the past three years in coordination with MoA to fill the gap for farmers who have not received support in maintaining their livelihood from the MoA and other actors. The MoA provided a list to include demolitions/damage to productive assets less livestock, which is used as a base for the selection of beneficiaries and must be verified through the project within HPF criteria of vulnerability. Also, through meeting with the MoA Project Planning Dept, we were able to confirm that there is a need for rehabilitating farming land and rehabilitating agriculture roads for vulnerable farmers to be better able to access their land and reestablish and maintain their livelihood.

Also, farmers in the targeted area are in constant threat when accessing their lands due to limited and damaged agriculture roads and are prone to settler attacks from the nearby settlements. Farmers expressed the need for support in protecting their livelihood including agriculture land and roads, increasing access to resources as a result of destruction/lack of access. ESDC has gathered evidence of improved accessibility and reduced intimidation as a direct result of agriculture roads.

At least 990 farming families will benefit from the project in order to reestablish and sustain their lands and agriculture livelihood.  This emergency project will assist in filling the gap that has been identified for demolitions. The MoA identified this intervention as a top priority. The MoA database will be the base for conducting the verification however, upon a detailed verification it is possible that there will be a discrepancy. Any revisions of locations will be communicated for approval by OCHA. 

21 km of agriculture roads will be rehabilitated for about 840 farming families improving access to their land and livelihood sources to build their resilience against occupational violence increasing the number of farmers reaching their land and therefore the larger numbers will ward of settler violence. The national consortium members, ESDC, MA’AN and LRC will coordinate intervention as per geographic locations where each partner is best able to access the farmers, resulting in efficient and effective use of resources.