The detention

Israeli military forces detained Brad Lander on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, while he took part in an international delegation harvesting olives alongside Palestinian farmers near Nahalin in the West Bank. Lander is the Democratic nominee for New York's 10th congressional district in the 3 November midterm elections and an ally of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani. He posted a photo taken from a bus on X, saying he had been detained along with a group of rabbis and volunteers. In a phone interview, he said he was held for roughly three hours before being released, while dozens of Israeli and international participants remained in custody.

How the harvest was halted

Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli organisation, said the volunteers had been accompanying Palestinian farmers near a village outside Bethlehem when Israeli forces arrived about two hours after the harvest began. Protect the Harvest, the group that organised the trip, described the moment in a statement.

“All volunteers were peacefully harvesting on the private land of a Palestinian family who had invited them.”

Soldiers told the group the area had been declared a closed military zone, then separated participants by nationality and drove them to a police station, with Israelis in minibuses and Americans in a larger bus. Rabbis for Human Rights said the group could not have known about the closure in advance. Estimates of the number detained vary: The Guardian put it at about 80, citing the organisers, while The Independent and EL PAÍS reported 90, citing rights groups.

Lander's account and the Israeli response

Lander said officials at an Israeli military facility told him he was being released because he is a public official, and he protested that he had done nothing different from anyone else.

“I hadn't done anything different from anyone else and I certainly didn't deserve any special treatment.”

He said he was then given a warning that his actions were illegal and wrong, and that the group had caused a public disturbance by going where it was not supposed to go. Rabbi Jill Jacobs, chief executive of the US rights group T'ruah, was also among those detained. She told Reuters that the group had offered to leave the area but was instead put on buses and taken to a police station, and that as far as she knew, police had made no formal accusations.

“We were obviously not doing anything violent but just the very act of picking olives together with Palestinian farmers was apparently disturbing for some.”

Settler violence in the olive harvest

The detention took place against a wider wave of settler violence against Palestinian olive farmers. According to La Razón, dozens of masked settlers attacked farmers with stones near Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, on Friday, 16 October, and beat a US photojournalist covering the harvest for The Washington Post, who ended up in hospital. Amnesty International said on Tuesday, 20 October, that the harvest had become a season of horror. The organisation said settlers also burn olive trees and steal crops, while Israeli army restrictions limit farmers' access to their fields. Attacks on European diplomats and a French mayor also drew international condemnation and calls for the Israeli government to crack down on militants.

Open questions

Lander said the rabbis and others still in custody were under threat of deportation. He said the group had been doing only one thing: harvesting olives. The Israeli army has said it will publish a statement on Lander during the day, while Israeli police and the US Embassy in Jerusalem had not commented on the case when the reports were published.