Brad Lander and American rabbis detained during Palestinian olive harvest in West Bank

• Brad Lander, a Jewish American congressional candidate from New York, was released hours later while 80 other volunteers remained in custody
• The Israeli military said the unapproved harvest near an Israeli community posed a security risk

Updated 7 min 33 sec ago

Arab News Pakistan

October 22, 2026 04:08

TEL AVIV: Israeli forces detained US Democratic congressional candidate Brad Lander on Wednesday while he was helping Palestinian farmers harvest olives in the occupied West Bank. He was released several hours later, while dozens of other volunteers, including American rabbis, remained in custody.

The incident occurred during the annual olive harvest, which has recently been marred by violence between Israeli settlers and Palestinian villagers gathering their crops.

The Israeli military said the farmers and volunteers had not obtained prior approval to conduct the harvest. It said they were detained because the “security risk posed by conducting an uncoordinated harvest near an Israeli community.” The military later added that the arrival of dozens of activists was intended to “provoke” and undermine the harvest.

Lander is running in the Nov. 3 US elections to represent New York’s heavily Democratic 10th congressional district in the House of Representatives.

“The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know,” Lander wrote on social media after his detention.

Following his release, he said: “These detentions by the IDF are one more attempt to undermine Palestinians’ right to harvest their olive groves, travel on their roads, and live in their homes.”

This 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 reported last week that the military had expanded by nearly 30 percent the area of farmland Palestinians cannot enter without prior approval, bringing the restricted zone to 34 square miles, or 88 square kilometers.

The military declined to comment on the exact figures but said Palestinian farmers must coordinate access to areas under Israeli security control.

The volunteers were taken to a police facility. Lander was released “after it became known that he was a congressional candidate,” Israeli police said in a statement.

Israeli rights group Yesh Din and the Palestinian Farmers’ Union said the 2026 harvest has been the most violent in recent years, with hundreds of reported thefts, clashes and arson attacks.

Much of the violence has occurred on land outside Palestinian villages, where Palestinians have traditionally harvested olives and Israeli settlers have increasingly established outposts without authorization from the Israeli government.

No clashes occurred before Israeli forces arrived on Wednesday, according to Beck Strober, a spokesperson for Protect the Harvest, the advocacy group that organized the volunteers participating in the harvest.

Jill Jacobs, one of a dozen American rabbis detained, condemned Israeli restrictions on Palestinians’ ability to harvest their crops.

“The 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,” Jacobs, chief executive of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, said in a statement.

Lander, who is endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, defeated US Rep. Dan Goldman in the Democratic primary for New York’s 10th congressional district. The race was viewed as a referendum on Democratic support for Israel. Both candidates are Jewish and have criticized Israel’s policies, but only Lander has described the war in Gaza as a genocide.

Lander is the latest 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.

Source link