Israel bars international delegation from entering West Bank during olive harvest - report

A 23-person multinational delegation aiming to meet Palestinians in the West Bank during olive harvest season has been banned from entering the territory, The Guardian reported on Tuesday. The group of French, Spanish, Luxembourgish, Swiss, Greek, Danish, Irish, and American delegates planned to attend Progressive International's Second Ramallah Congress in November, hosted in partnership with Birzeit University.According to the congress's website, the program has participants “hear expert testimony, deliberate the economic and legal dimensions of occupation, and prepare a collective roadmap for urgent international action.”British parliament member Sam Tarry, formerly with Labour, told The Guardian the group thought they had a “genuine chance of going across” the Allenby crossing with Jordan into the West Bank.

However, authorities stopped and held the group for about nine hours before refusing them entry, without explaining why. “They made a political decision very clearly based on the fact they didn't want people to witness what's been going on in the West Bank, especially ahead of the elections,” Tarry continued.Labour Party parliament member Clive Lewis told The Guardian: “We were detained, taken aside and then interrogated. People were shouted at.

We were asked why we were going in, what was happening, why our stories were one way or the other. The bottom line was it was a deeply unpleasant experience.” 'Turned away at the border with no reason'UK Member of Parliament Lara Bird, who was among those detained and barred from entering the West Bank on Tuesday, said in a statement that she "came to stand alongside Palestinians being attacked for harvesting olives on their own land. Instead, we were turned away at the border with no reason given.""It is more important now than ever that we bear witness and show our solidarity.

But we were prevented from doing so," the statement read.

The Guardian reported they contacted the Israeli embassy for comment.

The prohibition came after Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed officials at the beginning of October to pursue administrative removal orders against activists whose activities were believed to threaten public order or security in the West Bank, following a request from Yesha Council chairman Yisrael Ganz.In one incident following Katz's order, the IDF detained nearly 90 US, Israeli, and British volunteers aiming to help Palestinians harvest olives near Bethlehem in the West Bank, including New York congressional candidate Brad Lander.

The IDF and Foreign ministry claimed that the group of volunteers did not coordinate their visit and activities ahead of time and were in a prohibited zone. However, The Jerusalem Post received a copy of a letter sent by the organizers to coordinate their visit with the IDF nearly two months before the incident.Increase in settler violenceExtreme Israeli nationalist attacks in the West Bank have been on the rise as the seasonal olive harvest has flared confrontations.Earlier this month, the United Nations aid coordination office (OCHA) recorded at least 160 attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank during the first two weeks of the olive harvest.

The UN report also claimed that the IDF and Israeli border police protected settlers and even participated in attacks on Palestinians.The Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture claimed that attacks on olive trees and harvesters have resulted in $157 million in losses and the destruction of roughly 286,000 olive trees since he start of the war with Hamas in October 2023.Amichai Stein and Yonah Jeremy Bob contributed to this report.