Sponsor below the text / practical details below the form

You can help Palestinian families remain on their land in Masafer Yatta by sponsoring an olive tree in the Madison-Masafer Yatta Grove.

Palestinians in Masafer Yatta have planted and cultivated olive groves for generations, nurturing the trees that produce the region’s most cherished crop. Now Israeli seizure of land for war training, and an escalating campaign of violence and land theft by Israeli settlers, has placed the families of Masafer Yatta at extreme risk. Israeli settlers and soldiers have burned, slashed, bulldozed and uprooted hundreds of olive trees in the region.

Because Israeli law allows for the seizure of land as “state land” Palestinian families who cannot prove they have cultivated it for three years are at risk of losing their land.  

But you can help.

The planting of these olive trees can help protect Palestinian owned land from dispossession. Madison Wisconsin is committed to creating the Madison-Masafer Yatta Olive Grove, making trees available to the Palestinian farmers and land-owners most at risk in the Masafer Yatta region. 

Sponsoring an olive tree is a practical act of solidarity with the families of Masafer Yatta, and a hopeful act for the planet. And sponsoring a tree in the name of someone dear to you can be an enduring gift or celebration of life.

Please join us in creating another Madison-Masafer Yatta Olive Grove. After 378 trees that were sponsored in 2023!

Sponsor an olive tree

How does it work?

The olive trees sponsored via this page will be given to a farmer from a Palestinian village in Massafer Yatta in the West Bank and planted during the coming rainy season, between December 2024 and March 2025. All trees sponsored between now and December 31, 2024 will be planted by the end of March 2025.

Cost

The cost to sponsor a tree is 20 euros or about $22 to $24 US Dollars. You can easily sponsor trees with a credit card or PayPal using the form above. Just click the down arrow under “payment method” and you will see credit card and paypal options. Your donation will be in US Dollars at the current rate. You can check the rate here.

When 40 trees have been sponsored a grove can be planted, and it our hope that the first Madison- Masafer Yatta grove will be ready to plant this coming rainy season. 

CERTIFICATE

You will receive a lovely printable certificate by email, showing sponsorship of a tree in the Madison Olive Grove. You can chose to gift your tree(s) to someone dear to you, and place their name on the certificate, or dedicate them to someone whose memory you wish to honor with a tree. 

A little more info

This is an initiative by residents of Madison, Wisconsin to support farmers in Massafer Yatta, Palestine through Plant een Olijfboom (Plant an Olive Tree). For more information about this foundation click here.

Trees will be sourced locally in Palestine, and planted by local landowners who have requested them. If area farmers are in need of other trees, such as almonds, apricots, pomegranate or figs, Plant een Olijfboom (Plant an Olive Tree) will work with them to provide the trees that are most needed.

Massafer Yatta

Masafer Yatta is a rural region of about 8600 square acres at the southern end of the occupied West Bank, south of the Palestinian city of Yatta. Much of the region lies inside “Firing Zone 918”, an area claimed by Israel as a military training area. Israeli authorities have issued demolition orders for all of the structures in 12 villages, and soldiers have already demolished, schools, wells, barns and groves of trees. In May of 2022 residents lost a final appeal in the Israeli high court, clearing the way for the forced expulsion of about 1200 people, about half of whom are children.