Bombs are exploding all around, but in ancient Lebanon, the work must go on

AABRA, Lebanon – Mayada El Sayed, tape wrapped around her fingers to prevent injury, peels ripe olives from a tree, seemingly unfazed by the ever-present threat of bombs.

El Sayed, 45, said he was alarmed by the regular strikes – one of which was less than half a mile from the Bustan El Zeitoun grove where he worked, a few miles inland from Lebanon's Mediterranean coast and a 45-minute drive south by road. the capital, Beirut – as Israel enters the neighboring country to fight the terrorist group Hezbollah.

The mother of three children said she is worried about something happening to her children in their home in the town of Haret Saida, which is the site of Israeli air strikes on homes and businesses. He said he was afraid that he would not be able to come home to them.

Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel the day after a terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Health officials in Lebanon say more than 3,600 people have been killed in the country since fighting began last year. The United Nations refugee agency says 1.3 million people have left their homes.

Hezbollah attacks killed about 100 people and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and southern Lebanon last year, according to Israel, and 60,000 civilians were evacuated from the north. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to pursue military action against Hezbollah until those families displaced from Israel return home safely.

Farm to table

Amidst the death and displacement of many people, farmers faced other great losses. Olives are one of the region's most important crops, but in just one month since the conflict began, more than 47,000 olive trees had been lost in southern Lebanon, according to a February report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Since then it has become increasingly difficult for olive farmers, as Israel intensified its air and air campaign and moved troops and tanks into the region in September.

“It's a big risk for farmers – they wait a whole year to harvest, and they live off what they produce,” said Walid Mushantaf, manager of Bustan El Zeitoun.

Mushantaf said that there are many other farmers who failed to enter their fields and said that their harvest will end.

He worked to rebuild his farm after the end of Lebanon's Civil War in 1990 and said the land had previously been set aside as a construction site before he converted it.

“I was born in this village, and I know that my grandfather used to go to the tent and sleep under a tree in the summer,” he said. “It was like his second home.”

El Sayed, who lives with her husband and their three children—Ibrahim, 16; Ahmed, 14; and Zainab, 12 – and her mother-in-law, say she is the sole breadwinner for her family.

“We have to pay bills — rent, electricity, government water bills, internet. We need to work, eat,” he said.

He goes home at the end of the day, but the other 15 workers stay in the woods.

One of them, Youssef Muqbil, 32, from Egypt, said he relies on growing olives to support his wife and two children, aged 11 and 13, at home in Egypt.

When the forest workers hear about the planes hitting nearby, they retreat to their houses, but that doesn't stop the noise.

“Strikes are near us,” he said, explaining that these things are scary for workers.

The war hit Rose Bechara Perini's company, Darmmess, after the equipment used to process the olives was blown up.

Most of the farmers in Deir Mimas, the town where his business is based, have moved to Beirut and are waiting for a “miracle” that would allow them to return home safely to earn a living, he added.

“Olives are the economy. It's the money we earn, it's our livelihood, it's our heritage,” he said. “It's everything in the village.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com