(Corrects day of Israeli announcement of arrests to Monday, not Tuesday, in final paragraph)
By Alexander Cornwell
TEL AVIV, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Brad Lander, a US Democratic Party candidate for Congress, was detained by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, along with other Americans, Israelis and Palestinians taking part in the annual olive harvest, rights groups said.
The incident took place in Nahalin, a village south of Bethlehem, as Palestinians were gathering olives accompanied by around 80 volunteers, according to Israeli organisation Rabbis for Human Rights and Jewish North American organisation T’ruah.
Lander, a Jewish American and former New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate, wrote on X that he had been detained along with a group of rabbis and volunteers.
“We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nahalin in the West Bank. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”
Lander, who is an ally of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and has been critical of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza, was later released, according to Rabbis for Human Rights and T’ruah.
Lander, who is running for New York’s 10th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives in the November 3 midterm elections, was not immediately available for comment.
Israeli police said it had detained Palestinian olive harvesters and dozens of Israeli and foreign activists gathering olives near the fence of an Israeli settlement, saying it was prohibited. One of the foreign nationals was later released once it became known he was a congressional candidate, police said.
The military said harvesting in that area required prior coordination, which had not happened, and that those present had been detained. It did not say harvesting there was prohibited.
Lander is the only one released so far, while the others are expected to be interrogated, according to Rabbis for Human Rights Acting Director Anton Goodman.
“I would suggest to all activists go out there and get yourself elected,” he said.
HARVEST AREA DECLARED A CLOSED MILITARY ZONE
The volunteers were accompanying local farmers gathering olives who often are faced with the threat of violence from Israeli settlers, as an act of solidarity in what is known as protective presence.
Israeli settler violence against Palestinians is surging, while the Israeli military continues to curb Palestinian freedoms, including access to farmland.
Olives are the backbone of Palestinian agriculture, a sector that accounts for around 8% of GDP and more than 60,000 jobs, according to the Palestinian Authority’s agriculture ministry.
Rabbis for Human Rights and T’ruah said Israeli military and police forces arrived around two hours after the Palestinians and volunteers began gathering olives, and informed them that they were in a closed military zone and would be detained.
Goodman said they were not aware the area had been declared a closed military zone since it had only been issued that morning but they told the Israeli forces they would respect the order and leave.
“However, we were told that we cannot leave because we have been disturbing the public order,” he said by phone, speaking from a police station in the Israeli Betar Illit settlement.
“If you would have come to our harvest earlier today, you would have found a place that was quiet and peaceful and respectful and definitely not harming any of the public order.”
Among those detained were over 30 US citizens, as well as UK and Canadian citizens, according to Rabbi Jill Jacobs, chief executive of T’ruah, who is among those who have been 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,” Jacobs, a 51-year-old rabbi from Manhattan, told Reuters by phone.
A spokesperson for the US Embassy in Jerusalem said it was aware of reports that US citizens had been detained and was monitoring the situation but declined further comment, citing privacy and other considerations.
“The Trump administration has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans,” he said.
Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians and other civilians in the West Bank over the weekend prompted a call by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Saturday for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to crack down on the violence.
An American photojournalist for the Washington Post covering a Palestinian olive harvest on Friday was beaten by Israeli settlers, while European diplomats and a French mayor were attacked at another Palestinian olive harvest by settlers on Saturday.
Palestinians were attacked by settlers in both incidents.
Israeli police announced on Monday it had made 10 arrests in connection with the weekend violence.
(Reporting by Alexander Cornwell, additional reporting by Pesha Magid; Editing by Hugh Lawson, Nick Zieminski and Bill Berkrot)
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