Dozens detained at West Bank olive harvest as access rule disputed

Israeli forces detained dozens of volunteers and Palestinian harvesters at an olive grove near Bethlehem on Wednesday, 21 October. The intervention interrupted a harvest that US and Israeli activists had joined to help local farmers; whether they needed prior permission to be there is disputed.

NPR journalists at the scene saw soldiers and police declare the grove near the Palestinian village of Nahalin a closed military zone and take participants for questioning. Rights groups and news reports put the number of volunteers detained at roughly 80 or 90, rather than an established total. The group included Brad Lander, the Democratic candidate for New York’s 10th congressional district. He was released several hours later; Israeli police said that happened after they learnt he was a congressional candidate.

The volunteers said they had joined the farmers to offer protection from settler attacks. The detention came during a harvest season that has seen attacks on olive harvesters elsewhere in the West Bank, including one in which photographer Heidi Levine was injured.

The Israeli military said farmers had not requested the advance coordination required for harvesting at that location. But The Times of Israel reported that a map distributed to Palestinian farmers by Israel’s Civil Administration did not mark the grove as requiring it. According to the newspaper, the military responded that the site was unmarked because farmers had not previously asked to harvest there. An activist from Rabbis for Human Rights also told The Jerusalem Post that the organisation had written to military commanders about security arrangements but received no reply. Those letters do not establish that the farmers had applied for harvest approval.

Police said on Wednesday evening that they had released 32 people after questioning, barring them from returning to the area, and another 40 after finding no grounds to hold them further. They said four foreign nationals were to face hearings on possible removal from Israel. In a later report, NPR said campaign sponsor New Israel Fund put the number of volunteers released at about 90. The accounts do not resolve whether those four were among the people subsequently released.