Brad Lander, a Jewish American from New York, was released later while 80 other volunteers remained in custodyThe Israeli military justified the arrests by claiming the harvest was not coordinated and posed a security risk<\/p>\n
Updated 4 min 34 sec ago<\/p>\n
Arab News Pakistan<\/p>\n
October 22, 2026 04:08<\/p>\n
TEL AVIV: Israeli forces detained US Democratic congressional candidate Brad Lander on Wednesday as he helped Palestinian farmers harvest olives in the occupied West Bank, releasing him hours later while dozens of other volunteers, including a group of American rabbis, remained in custody.
\nThe incident was the latest in an annual olive harvest that has been marked by violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinian villagers attempting to gather their crops.
\nThe Israeli military said the farmers and volunteers had failed to seek prior approval for the harvest and were detained \u201cdue to the security risk posed by conducting an uncoordinated harvest near an Israeli community.\u201d It later added that it viewed \u201cthe arrival of dozens of activists as an act intended solely to provoke, which undermines the harvesting process.\u201d
\nLander is running in the US elections on Nov. 3 to represent a heavily Democratic New York district in the US House of Representatives.
\n\u201cThe occupation is a crime under international law,\u201d Lander wrote on social media after he was detained. \u201cHarvesting olives isn\u2019t a crime under any law I know.\u201d
\n\u201cThese detentions by the IDF are one more attempt to undermine Palestinians\u2019 right to harvest their olive groves, travel on their roads, and live in their homes,\u201d he added in a post after his release.
\nThis year, Palestinians have been required to coordinate with the Israeli military to access more of their privately owned farmland than in previous years. The anti-settlement group Peace Now said last week that the army had expanded by nearly 30 percent the area of farmland that Palestinians cannot enter without prior approval, to 34 square miles (88 square kilometers). The Israeli military declined to comment on the exact figures but said Palestinian farmers must coordinate access to areas under Israeli security control.
\nThe detained volunteers were taken to a police facility. Lander was among them but \u201creleased after it became known that he was a congressional candidate,\u201d the Israeli police said in a statement.
\nIsraeli rights group Yesh Din and the Palestinian Farmers\u2019 Union have said the 2026 harvest has been the most violent in recent history, with hundreds of reported thefts, clashes and arson attacks.
\nMuch of the violence has unfolded on land outside Palestinian villages, where Palestinians have historically harvested olives and Israeli settlers have increasingly erected outposts without authorization from Israel\u2019s government.
\nBut there were no clashes before Israeli forces arrived Wednesday, according to Beck Strober, a spokesperson for Protect the Harvest, the advocacy group that organized the volunteers at the grove.
\nJill Jacobs, one of a dozen American rabbis detained, condemned the Israeli government restricting the ability of Palestinians to harvest freely.
\n\u201cThe Israeli government is actively advancing the forced displacement of Palestinian communities across the West Bank, using its military to deny Palestinians access to their land and intimidate those who stand alongside them,\u201d Jacobs, chief executive of T\u2019ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, said in a statement.
\nLander, who was endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, defeated US Rep. Dan Goldman in a primary for New York\u2019s 10th congressional district. The race was viewed as a referendum on the Democratic party\u2019s support for Israel. Both candidates are Jewish and have criticized Israel, but only Lander called the war in Gaza a genocide.
\nLander was not the first US politician detained in the West Bank this year. US Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said Israeli forces detained him during a visit in July.<\/p>\n
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