Israel detains US congressional candidate Brad Lander during West Bank olive harvest
The New York Democrat was picking olives with rabbis and Palestinian farmers. About 80 volunteers were held; Lander was the first to be released.
Archive image · Photo: Tessa Bury / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Israeli forces on Wednesday detained US Democrat Brad Lander in the occupied West Bank. The former New York City comptroller, who is running in New York's 10th congressional district, said he was harvesting olives with a group of rabbis and volunteers in a grove near Nehalim, close to Bethlehem. According to Rabbis for Human Rights, about 80 participants were held by Israeli forces after roughly two hours on the farmland and told they were in a closed military zone.
While in custody, Lander wrote on X: "The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn't a crime under any law I know." He was released first. The other activists, including 33 US citizens as well as Britons and Canadians, were taken to a police station in the Beitar Illit settlement, with foreign nationals expected to be moved to a military base. The group says it could not have known about the closed zone and agreed to leave when asked.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment and Israel Police did not respond to Reuters' questions; the US Embassy in Jerusalem also did not immediately respond. The incident comes amid rising settler violence during the olive harvest, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over the weekend to crack down on it.