Palestine's grand mufti has issued a religious ruling prohibiting Palestinians from buying olive oil or olives stolen from Palestinian farmers and sold by Israeli settlers.
Sheikh Mohammed Ahmad Hussein, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Territories, said purchasing stolen produce was forbidden because those selling it did not legally own it.
He said buying the goods would also encourage the seizure of Palestinian land, the theft of its resources and the displacement of its residents.
The ruling follows reports that Israeli settlers established an olive press inside an outpost built on land belonging to al-Lubban al-Gharbi, north-west of Ramallah.
The facility could allow settlers to process olives taken from Palestinian-owned land in the occupied West Bank and sell the resulting oil.
According to the report, settlers have promoted the press as capable of processing both small and large harvests and have encouraged the sale of the oil at prices competing with those in Palestinian markets.
The mufti said Palestinian institutions and the public should reject the trade in produce obtained through theft or the seizure of land.
The ruling comes during an olive harvest season marked by growing settler attacks on Palestinian farmers and agricultural land across the West Bank.
Recent incidents have included the theft of harvested olives and equipment, the destruction of trees and attempts to prevent farmers from reaching their land.
The attacks have intensified during a season in which settlers have also organised campaigns to prevent Palestinians from reaching their olive groves.
The olive harvest is an important source of income for thousands of Palestinian families and has increasingly become a focus of settler violence and restrictions on Palestinian access to farmland.
Palestinian farmers have described a pattern of settler attacks, land seizures and destruction of olive groves that they say is intended to force them away from their land.