U.S. Democratic congressional nominee Brad Lander was detained Wednesday along with roughly 80 American and Israeli rabbis and activists who were helping Palestinian families pick olives near the Israeli settlement of Beitar Illit in the occupied West Bank, NPR reported.
Israeli security forces declared the grove a closed military zone, escorted the group away and loaded them onto a bus bound for a police station. Israel’s military and police did not immediately say what the group was accused of.
“Harvesting olives is not a crime under any law,” Lander said in a video recorded on the bus.
Two Israeli lawyers who handle such cases told NPR it was the largest mass detention of activists in the West Bank in at least a decade. The group included members of the U.S. organization T’ruah and the Israeli group Rabbis for Human Rights.
Sources: NPR. Thee Arizona Times uses AI-assisted reporting reviewed against the sources listed.
Photo: Orrling / CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
