APN has a clear vision and mission in supporting Palestinian famers in face of the attacks they are exposed to, the destruction of their crops, all the bombing and bulldozing they witness in addition to the actions of forcing them off their lands, all imposed by settlers and the occupation forces.  

The fourth “Plant Your Resilience” campaign was launched in collaboration with Husna FM, and falls under APN’s MTC program, which works on compensating affected farmers by replanting uprooted trees, and contributes towards planting trees to maintain the roots of those farmers on their lands, and prevent the occupation forces from confiscating farmers lands based on the “Othman Rule” in which the occupation forces take as a pretext to gain access to land they claim uncultivated for 3 years.

The campaign witnessed great interactions from citizens, local institutions, well-known and national figures, and frameworks, as well as private sector schools. People’s enthusiasm was further elaborated when communicating during the open program held on Husna FM, presented by the stations’ General Director Mr. Hussam Gharaibeh.

APN’s Project Manager, Mr. Mohammed Qteishat took part in one of the segments to explain that the occupation forces have uprooted over 3 million trees since the year 2000 – the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. In return APN, has successfully replanted 2.6 million fruitful trees across Palestine, and has expanded to developing projects such as building water harvesting wells, setting up and providing irrigation networks, in addition to providing vegetable seedlings to farmers.

APN can confirm that the occupation forces have uprooted, burned and stolen olive and other fruit trees from Palestinian ground for over more than 70 years. This is all part of a systematic attack to displace Palestinians from their lands and to deprive them from their source of income and livelihood, as they work on driving high rates of food insecurity along with greater rates of unemployment in Palestine.

It is worth noting that weak contributions of Arab and Islamic capital to the environmental and agricultural sector in the Palestinian territories deprives Palestinian farmers of their ability to sustain their lands, which in turn will also affect the local market and the farmer’s ability to export their products, especially to Jordan, which is the closest geographically, and most capable of conducting trade with Palestinians, far away from importing crops grown in the occupied territories.   

On a final note, the MTC program has been ongoing since 2001, under the slogan “They Uproot a Tree… We Replant Ten”.