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The clampdown on international volunteers working to defend the Palestinian olive pickers targeted another group on Thursday, which included four Italian women, stopped by the Israeli Defence Forces.
Their detention was made public by the Italian Foreign Ministry, which announced that it had requested clarification from Israel. The Italian women were stopped in the village of al-Bweib, south of Hebron, after news emerged yesterday of a similar measure taken against other international activists, among them two fellow Italians, Manuel and Alberto Tartarotti, later expelled from the country.
"As soon as they were informed of what had happened, the Italian Embassy in Tel Aviv and the Consulate General of Italy in Jerusalem got in touch with the Israeli authorities, requesting urgent clarification about the circumstances of the detention and about the situation of the Italian nationals.
The Foreign Ministry has so far obtained confirmation that the Italian women are being held at a police station", the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, confirming the presence of four Italian citizens in the group of international activists detained today.
Failure of 'seeking prior approval'
Yesterday, a large-scale IDF operation led to the stopping and detention of around 90 volunteers, including Democratic candidate for the United States Congress Brad Lander, who was later released together with dozens of other activists under strict restrictions on their movements.
This year's olive harvest has been marked by violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinian villagers, with the latter attempting to gather their crops and the former attempting to steal them.
The Israeli military said the farmers and volunteers had failed to seek prior approval for the harvest and were detained “due to the security risk posed by conducting an uncoordinated harvest near an Israeli community.”
It later added that it viewed “the arrival of dozens of activists as an act intended solely to provoke, which undermines the harvesting process.”
In recent weeks there has been a surge in attacks carried out by groups of extremist settlers, culminating last weekend in the wounding of a photojournalist working for the Wall Street Journal and in an assault on several European diplomatic vehicles.