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Today, Israeli forces conducted what two Israeli lawyers have told NPR is the largest mass detention of activists in the occupied West Bank in at least a decade. The group was made up primarily of American and Israeli rabbis, activists and even a U.S. congressional nominee, New York City Democrat Brad Lander. They'd been helping Palestinian families harvest their olives. Israeli settler attacks have increased during the olive harvest season. An NPR team was the only American media to witness these detentions. NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF OLIVES DROPPING IN BUCKET)
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: At an olive grove right underneath an Israeli settlement, 77-year-old Faheemeh picks olives from her trees on land that she says has been in her family for generations.
FAHEEMEH: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: She doesn't give her last name and says her nephews were too afraid to come today for the threat of settler attacks, and this is the first time she's been able to come in years.
FAHEEMEH: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: After the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, three years ago, it became just too dangerous to return, she says, because of attacks by settlers.
FAHEEMEH: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: Now she hopes she has protection. Dozens of American and Israeli rabbis and activists are among those who've come to join her in this harvest.
FAHEEMEH: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: "I'm so happy that I'm surrounded with all these people who are helping me, and thank God I have this opportunity to return to my land," she says.
FAHEEMEH: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: Among those with her is a U.S. congressional nominee, the Democrat Brad Lander from New York.
BRAD LANDER: What's going on here cries out for attention. I feel that profoundly as an American Jew and as someone who's headed into the next Congress. My constituents don't want their tax dollars paying for this. And my Jewish values say we better show up and help end it.
SHERLOCK: To end settler violence that the British foreign secretary, Ed Miliband, recently said amounted to, quote, "ethnic cleansing." Last year, even rabbis in this group were attacked. Today, for almost two hours, the group does manage to pick olives, some even sing and play the recorder.
(SOUNDBITE OF RECORDER PLAYING)
SHERLOCK: But then...
Drone - great.
...We spot drones in the sky.
(CROSSTALK)
SHERLOCK: It's been very calm harvesting here, but now there is a hubbub of activity. The organizers say we have to get ready to probably move. There's a increase in police vehicles building up behind a high barbed-wire fence at the edge of the settlement.
The Israeli military arrives.
MATTAN BERNER-KADISH: We now have army, police and settler security looking at us.
SHERLOCK: Mattan Berner-Kadish is from the group Protect the Harvest.
BERNER-KADISH: Maybe they let us keep going, but it seems far more likely that, soon enough, we will have a closed military zone.
(CROSSTALK)
SHERLOCK: And that is what happens. We're told to leave the olive grove. Berner-Kadish calls out.
BERNER-KADISH: Everybody, please, needs to get their bag and come down here. Get your stuff and come down.
SHERLOCK: The activists carry the olives they harvested as the army escorts the group out to the roadside. Scenes like these have happened often during the olive harvesting season in the West Bank.
BERNER-KADISH: Wow.
SHERLOCK: What isn't usual is what happens next.
BERNER-KADISH: That is to take everyone here to the processing center.
SHERLOCK: Activist Berna-Kadish points to a large bus. Israeli security forces detain the entire group, including the elderly Palestinian woman, Faheemeh, and the congressional nominee, Lander.
LANDER: Hey guys. So we're on a bus. We've been detained by the Israeli military for harvesting olives. And let's be clear - occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives is not a crime under any law.
SHERLOCK: In a statement, the Israeli military said Palestinians require a permit to be able to harvest this land and that it regarded the presence of so many activists as a, quote, "provocation." By the evening, Lander and most of the activists had been released. The Palestinians were also allowed to go - but not back to their olive grove.
Ruth Sherlock, NPR News, occupied West Bank. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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