TEL AVIV: A Democratic party candidate for the US Congress was among dozens of people arrested by Israeli forces on Wednesday as activists harvested olives alongside Palestinian farmers near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
Brad Lander, a Jewish American from New York, was later released, but about 80 other volunteers remained in custody.
“We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know,” Lander said.
“These detentions ... are one more attempt to undermine Palestinians’ right to harvest their olive groves, travel on their roads, and live in their homes.”
Lander is the Democratic party’s nominee for New York’s 10th congressional district in the Nov. 3 midterm elections, and a close ally of the city’s Mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Rabbi Jill Jacobs, chief executive of Jewish North American rights group T'ruah, was also detained. “We were obviously not doing anything violent but just the very act of picking olives together with Palestinian farmers was apparently disturbing for some,” she said.
The Israeli military said the farmers and activists had failed to seek approval for the harvest and were detained “due to the security risk posed by conducting an uncoordinated harvest near an Israeli community.”
Palestinian farmers face the daily threat of violence from Israeli settlers.The 2026 olive harvest has been the most violent in recent history, with hundreds of thefts, clashes and arson attacks. Much of the violence has taken place on land outside Palestinian villages, where Palestinians have historically picked the new season’s olives and settlers have built illegal outposts without authorization from Israel’s government.