IDF Detains Brad Lander and About 80 Olive-Harvest Volunteers Near Bethlehem

A large contingent of Israeli security forces arrived at an olive grove outside Nahalin, near Bethlehem, on Wednesday and detained about 80 volunteers who had been picking fruit on land owned by a Palestinian family that invited them.

Among those held was Brad Lander, the New York Democratic congressional nominee, who posted from the bus taking him to a police station.

"We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nahalin in the West Bank. The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn't a crime under any law I know."

Soldiers told the group the area had been declared a closed military zone, according to the volunteer organization Protect the Harvest. They separated detainees by nationality, loading Israelis into minibuses and Americans onto a larger bus bound for a nearby police station.

Protect the Harvest said in a statement that the harvest had been peaceful until the army's arrival: "For reasons that remain unclear, the Israeli army showed up and detained approximately 80 people who were present." The group said detainees were given water but no food.

Joshua Schoffman, who served as Israel's deputy attorney general for more than a decade, was also detained. He described the episode on social media as a "complete hallucination," writing that the group had complied immediately when asked to stop and that "there was no friction whatsoever with settlers or with the security forces."

Other detainees included Jill Jacobs, chief executive of T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, and 11 other American rabbis affiliated with the group. Lander was released with a warning; the rest remained in custody, according to Protect the Harvest. The Israeli military and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Lander, who is Jewish and describes himself as a liberal Zionist, has been an outspoken critic of the Israeli government's conduct in the West Bank and Gaza. He has said he believes Israel's military campaign in Gaza since October 2023 amounts to genocide, a characterization that remains disputed and is attributed here to his own stated position, not an established finding. His critical stance on Israel was a central factor in his primary victory over a prominent Israel-aligned opponent.

The detention came during a harvest season in which, the Guardian reported, settler violence against Palestinians and accompanying volunteers has drawn international condemnation, including an assault on a US photojournalist and separate attacks on European diplomats and a French mayor over the preceding weekend.