A volunteer collects olives at an olive orchard in the West Bank village of Burin, near Nablus, on Oct. 8, 2020. (Photo by Nidal Eshtayeh/Xinhua)

 In the early hours of every morning during the current harvest season of olives, about 100 young Palestinians gather in the West Bank village of Burin to help Palestinian farmers reap their olives while protecting them from possible attacks by Jewish settlers.

Home to about 3,500 Palestinians, Burin covers an estimated area of nearly 13,000 hectares, but the residents in the village are allowed to use only one third of the land because of the Israeli constraints.

Under the Oslo Accords signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel in 1993, Burin belongs to Area C which is under full Israeli control.

To stave off attacks from settlers in the Har Brakha settlement north of the village, a local youth initiative was launched to help the Palestinian villagers through the current olive harvest season safe and sound, Mohammed al-Khatib, the initiative's coordinator, told Xinhua.

"Every time the olive harvest season approaches, settlers attack Palestinian lands close to their settlements in order to damage our farms," al-Khatib said.

The young men are divided into two groups, one responsible for reaping olives with farmers, and the other following the settlers in an effort to prevent them from attacking farmers.

"The initiative will be going on for several weeks to allow local farmers to fully collect their harvest," al-Khatib said, adding they are ready to confront any Israeli attacks against the targeted farms.

Duha Assous, a local farmer, expressed her happiness about young volunteers' help with her family's olive harvest.

Settlers deliberately sabotage our harvest because they know olive trees represent "our steadfastness and survival," the 59-year-old woman told Xinhua.

Tareq Abu Laban, undersecretary for the economic sector at the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture, condemned the settlers' assault on farmers and their agricultural lands in the West Bank.

"Those attacks came under the protection of the Israeli army ... (which) insists on implementing its systematic policy against our territories by allowing settlers to attack farmers and lands," Laban told Xinhua.

The annual olive harvest season generates an estimated income of 800 million U.S. dollars to 900 million dollars for the Palestinian agricultural sector, contributing 20 to 25 percent of the total Palestinian economy.