A Fatwa (a authorized ruling on a degree of Islamic regulation) towards shopping for olive merchandise from settlers was issued by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories and Head of the Supreme Fatwa Council, Sheikh Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, on Tuesday, in response to the rise of settler assaults on the olive trade.
The authorized ruling was given in response to escalating settler violence, particularly towards olive bushes this harvest season, Hussein’s workplace revealed.
“The fundamental precept is the prohibition of shopping for one thing stolen, as a result of its vendor doesn’t personal it, nor does he have the best to get rid of it; Shopping for it encourages theft, cooperates in sin and aggression, and endorses wrongdoing,” Hussein mentioned. The sin is magnified if shopping for stolen items encourages the enemies to grab the lands of the Palestinians, plunder their sources, and displace their individuals from them.”
Primarily based on this ruling, the Grand Mufti insisted it was forbidden to buy olive merchandise “stolen from Palestinian bushes and bought by settlers, because of the nice evils concerned.”
“Amongst these evils is that it empowers the usurping occupier of our land, which necessitates concerted official and fashionable efforts to reject the sale and buy of usurped and stolen items,” he mentioned.
His ruling got here weeks after Israeli army bulldozers allegedly bulldozed olive groves close to Ramallah. Although the IDF has not issued a press release on the alleged destruction of the groves, the army has beforehand cited the necessity to clear land of olive bushes to forestall safety threats or ambushes on troops.
The olive harvest often begins within the first week of October. Olives are the spine of Palestinian agriculture, a sector that accounts for round 8% of GDP and greater than 60,000 jobs, in line with the Palestinian Authority’s agriculture ministry.
It has additionally reported that greater than 45,000 bushes, together with greater than 26,000 olive bushes, have been minimize down or broken throughout the West Financial institution throughout the first half of 2026.
The Nationwide has additionally reported that Palestinian farmers have been killed in current weeks by extremist settlers, together with a person named by the Palestinian Well being Ministry as 44-year-old Ali Hassan Yusor al-Bazzari.
Notably, the official account for the Palestinian Authority deleted an AI-generated video displaying a number of Israeli bulldozers destroying an olive grove, and the photographs have been shared broadly throughout pro-Palestinian social media accounts.
Reuters contributed to this report.
