Democratic congressional candidate Brad Lander, who is running in New York’s 10th Congressional District, stated he was detained by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while harvesting olives with volunteers near Nehalim in the occupied West Bank.
Lander, a former New York City comptroller, said he and over 40 international volunteers—including Americans and Israelis affiliated with human rights organizations—were engaged in olive harvesting when Israeli authorities detained them. He emphasized that his group’s actions were not illegal under any known law: “The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”
Lander reported he was released with a warning, and all but four of the detained individuals have since been freed. Israeli members of the group received bans prohibiting them from returning to the West Bank for 15 to 30 days. Israeli military officials stated that harvesting in the area requires farmers to submit formal requests to authorities prior to the olive harvest season to coordinate “security of the area and maintain public order.” They noted Palestinians in this region did not submit such requests, leading to the detentions.
The Israeli military confirmed Lander was released after his case came to their attention. Two Israeli lawyers who work on related cases described the detentions as the largest mass arrest of activists in the occupied West Bank in at least a decade. Rabbi Arik Ascherman, an Israeli human rights advocate, called the actions “unprecedented.”
