Some 90 volunteers with Rabbis for Human Rights were detained by the IDF in the West Bank on Wednesday, including congressional nominee Brad Lander (D-NY) and former deputy attorney-general Yehoshua Schoffman, sources told The Jerusalem Post.
Rabbis for Human Rights said the volunteers worked in the village of Nehalim near Bethlehem, accompanying Palestinian farmers to groves during the olive harvest. According to the left-leaning activist group, Palestinian farmers in the area had been unable to access the groves for three years.
Activists were then split between foreign nationals and Israeli citizens, and transported to a police station for processing. One of the detained activists confirmed to the Post that no one was harmed during the process.
Lander wrote that he was "simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank."
"The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know," he added.
Schoffman posted a message to X/Twitter as he was being detained, and noted that there was no confrontation with the soldiers or with any settler extremists in the area.
Rabbis for Human Rights activists detained in West Bank
Leadership from Rabbis for Human Rights said that their work in the West Bank was peaceful, and that it was the organization's policy to comply with IDF orders.
"We came to accompany farmers to land they had been unable to access for three years, and after two hours of peaceful olive harvesting, large numbers of troops arrived and closed off the area. No one could have known about this order in advance. Instead of protecting people working their land, the army is keeping them away from it and detaining those who came to accompany them for identification,” acting executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights Anton Goodman said.
In a video posted before his detainment, Lander said that Palestinians have a right to harvest peacefully on their lands, and that it is a commandment in Judaism to assist those in need.
On Tuesday, Lander, the former New York City comptroller, posted a video announcing that he was volunteering in the West Bank with the organization.
"Our goals for the trip are to help protect the olive harvest — and to shed a light on the reality of the occupation. To ensure that international solidarity goes beyond the harvest, to become a sustained commitment to protecting Palestinian communities from settler violence, forced displacement, and the ongoing threats to their right to remain on their land," he wrote.
"Thankfully, our corner of today's harvest was peaceful and successful. But violence, unfortunately, is never far away."