Symposium on the Global Sumud Flotilla: Ecocide as Genocide – The curious disappearance of the Palestinian olive tree

[Ayşe Didem is an assistant professor of international law at Boğaziçi University, Faculty of Law, Istanbul]

Should an olive tree rooted in occupied Palestine, surviving in the shrinking open-air prison ruled under the Israeli apartheid regime be held differently than any other olive tree rooted anywhere else in the world? Could the uprooting of this olive tree be a testimony itself to the ongoing genocide? The systematic destruction of nature may be understood as part of a broader process aimed at destroying Palestinian people who inhabit the land. 

In this contribution, I read environmental damage and starvation in Palestine as part of the systematic weaponisation of life systems by Israel, to assess what they can show for the pattern of conduct inferring genocidal intent. I argue that the dismantling of ecological and infrastructural conditions of survival must be read in the context of the crime of genocide. In what follows, ecocide  will be evaluated as a method of genocide. In this context, I will draw upon the International Criminal Court’s policy on addressing environmental damage through the Rome Statute and its Al Bashir reasoning. While the scale of environmental damage perpetrated by Israel is nothing short of ecocide, the critical discussions on recognising ecocide as a distinct crime is left out deliberately (But see) (and see). Furthermore, the ICC practice for the prosecution of environmental crimes must be distinguished from proposals to amend the Rome Statute to criminalise ecocide or intentional environmental destruction. 

On the Contextual Element of Genocide

 Israel’s dismantling of ecological and infrastructural conditions of survival must be read in the context of the crime of genocide. It is helpful to emphasise the contextual element of genocide here. Bozbayındır encourages us to look at the telos in his book, i.e. the main protected value of the crime of crimes, to have a sense of the contextual element. He also draws attention to Lemkin’s definition of genocide in which “the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups” is emphasised as the core purpose of the crime. 

Olive trees are part of the foundations of life for Palestinians. According to many official records, the systematic occupation of Palestine began in 1967. Palestinian agricultural lands were targeted first, affecting directly the olive-growing communities. A UN General Assembly report from 1992 shows the systematic targeting and uprooting of 30.000 fruit trees in a single year. The large-scale uprooting has only expanded ever since with numbers of olive trees uprooted reaching 800.000 in 2013. For the trees that were still rooted in 2023, harvest was blocked. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported 9.600 ha of olive-cultivated land being left unharvested, more than 1,200 metric tons of olive oil lost worth about 10 million US dollars in direct losses. It is today estimated that the numbers may have gone up to 1.000.000 olive trees uprooted. 

Taking a few steps back, international humanitarian law also builds a protective layer for the essential foundations of life. Article 54 API and Article 14 APII provide the IHL bridge for the conditions of life protected under the genocide framework: Art 54(1) of Additional Protocol I for international armed conflicts, Article 14 of the Additional Protocol II provides the parallel rule for non-international armed conflicts. Both prohibit attacking, destroying, removing, or rendering useless objects indispensable to civilian survival, including foodstuffs, agricultural areas, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works, when done for the purpose of denying their sustenance value to civilians or the adverse party.

The IHL provisions show why the destruction or denial of food, water, agriculture, fuel, sanitation, and relief access is not merely a humanitarian tragedy; it is a legally prohibited method of warfare. In a similar vein, starvation of civilians is strictly prohibited as a method of warfare. The ICRC treats the prohibition on starvation of civilians as a rule of customary international humanitarian law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts.

“[O]bjects indispensable to civilian survival” is not only foodstuffs, but the natural environment that nurture the land’s  food-producing capacity; furthermore, fuel and electricity though not expressly listed, may be indispensable for the agricultural method. It is clear that there is a legal significance attached to a conduct that deprives the civilian population of the material conditions of life. This, in fact, reflects Israel’s overall objective. Latest geospatial assessment from FAO and UNOSAT confirms that the material basis of food production has been systematically degraded in Gaza: cropland, orchards, field crops, greenhouses, agricultural wells, irrigation systems, tractors and other farming tools, as well as fishing boats and aquaculture facilities. This is not merely temporary disruption but the collapse of the agrifood system, with more than 80% of cropland damaged by April 2025 and only a small part still available for cultivation. The fishing sector had also been brought to the brink of collapse, with the Gaza City port severely damaged and most fishing boats destroyed.

Ecocide as Genocide 

The destruction of the natural environment under apartheid does not by itself transform apartheid into genocide; however, where environmental destruction is deliberately deployed to make the continued existence of a protected racial, ethnic, national, or religious group impossible, it constitutes evidence of genocidal acts under Article 6(b) or Article 6(c), and aids in establishing genocidal intent. Environmental damage in this context means

“any serious anthropogenic destruction, deterioration, or loss of the natural environment, including the impact on the health and well-being of a particular ecosystem and its non-human inhabitants.”

(ICC Policy on Addressing Environmental Damage Through the Rome Statute, ‘ICC Policy’ para. 16.)

Article II(c) of the Genocide Convention, as well as Art 6(c) of the Rome Statute criminalises “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” This language is directly suited to a case framed around destruction of, inter alia, food and agricultural capacity. Likewise, Article 6(b) should also be taken into consideration. ICC states in its policy document on addressing environmental damage:

“Given the central role that the natural environment plays in the social, cultural, religious, and spiritual life of many groups – particularly Indigenous People, people of African descent, and peasants [emphasis added] – intentionally damaging the environment may cause members of a protected group sufficiently serious bodily or mental harm to qualify as genocide under this provision.”

(para. 23)

For people living under an apartheid regime, destruction of their natural environment may support a genocide argument if three elements are established. First, the affected people must fall within one of the protected groups: national, ethnic, racial, or a religious group. Apartheid usually involves domination by one racial group over another, so this requirement is satisfied for Israel and Palestine, but “people under apartheid” as such is not itself a protected group unless framed through race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Second, the environmental destruction must cause harm serious enough to qualify under Article 6(b), or create destructive conditions under Article 6(c). Article 6(c) is especially relevant where environmental destruction deprives a group of water, food, land, health, sanitation, shelter, agriculture, or conditions of physical survival. The Rome Statute expressly covers “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction…” This form of genocide can be committed through environmental damage such as the systematic uprooting of olive trees. (ICC Policy para. 24) Third — and most importantly — it must be shown that the perpetrators intended to destroy the protected group as such, in whole or in part. The ICC Elements of Crimes require not merely serious harm, but that the conduct occur in the context of a manifest pattern directed against the group or be conduct capable of effecting such destruction.

The ICC’s Al-Bashir analogy

The Darfur precedent is especially relevant for the Palestinian olive trees because the ICC Prosecutor’s argument against Omar Al-Bashir did not only rely on killing members of the group but destroying the material conditions through which the group survives. It treated the destruction of the targeted groups’ survival infrastructure as part of genocide under Article 6(c). In this context, the ICC policy reminds that

“the deliberate withholding or taking away of the basic necessities of life over an extended period of time” can meet the threshold for a genocidal act.

(para. 23)

In relation to Darfur, the ICC Office of the Prosecutor alleged that Omar Al-Bashir committed genocide under article 6(c) by destroying the targeted groups’ “food, wells and water pumping machines, shelter, crops and livestock” and by usurping their land. (ICC Policy para. 24) This case has important overlaps with the systematic targeting of olive trees in the occupied West Bank. 

The everyday relationship of Palestinians with olive trees, particularly during the harvest seasons has become a principle of sumud, a symbol of Palestinian nationhood and resistance. Moreover, the mere standing of an olive tree has become a testimony that the land is Palestinian. Braverman’s contribution is indispensable for understanding the legal and political life of the olive tree in Palestine. Both the Israeli Civil Administration and Israel’s Defense Forces have understood very well that olive trees and their harvest were at the heart of Palestinian self-determination. Jewish Israeli settlers were directly targeting and uprooting olive trees, causing national and international backlash. As a result, the Israeli authorities started implementing detailed systems of spatial and temporal regulations, specifically to control Palestinians’ care of olive trees in the name of protection. Israeli Defense Forces closely monitored the process and enforced the regulations more systematically from 2002 onwards. This process initiated a polite fiction between the Jewish settlers and the Israeli Defense Forces, marked with the 2006 Supreme Court decision ordering the IDF to support Palestinian olive cultivation and to protect access, further institutionalizing military oversight. 

Conclusion

“If the Olive Trees knew the hands that planted them, Their Oil would become Tears.”

Mahmoud Darwish

Olive trees uprooted in Palestine are different from any other uprooted tree. An olive tree standing is a living proof of Palestinian identity, a mark on the land. It is also targeted as an essential part of the ecological infrastructure of life and either uprooted, replanted elsewhere, or obstructed from being harvested. But a tree, unlike a human, cannot be moved so easily. It cannot be accused of being a terrorist although Israeli policy treated them as a threat to their national security. Ecocide in this context becomes a method of genocide, viewed in light of the curious disappearance of the Palestinian olive tree.

Environmental damage that becomes systematic ecological destruction over decades contributes to systematic starvation, directly forming the pattern of conduct that establishes the material elements of genocide. Ecological destruction in this context, carried out inter alia, through exterminating olive trees, obstructing harvest, and causing food waste to specifically render the objects indispensable to civilian survival useless, constitutes genocide.

One might question whether it really matters at a point of ongoing genocide where Palestinian civilians are killed daily, children are being picked up randomly and detained by Israeli soldiers to be abused and mistreated as prisoners. Even civilians of different nationalities sailing through the high seas to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza are not an exception to the Israeli cruel treatment. Yet it is vital exactly at this point to leave a mark of the systematic destruction of life by any means, in Palestine and beyond by the Israeli genocidal machine that doesn’t miss any opportunity to desecrate human dignity and integrity, let alone ecosystems. Alongside the systematic mass killings of Palestinians, their torture and rape of civilians, and the arrest and abuse of children, the systematic uprooting of olive trees are all signs of a single purpose: destruction of life and peaceful order.