US congressional candidate detained by Israeli authorities in West Bank

Become an Independent member to bookmark this article Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Membership today. Join today Already a member? Log in Brad Lander, a US Democratic party candidate for Congress, was among dozens of volunteers detained by Israeli military and police on Wednesday. Lander was picking olives with Palestinian farmers near Bethlehem when he and around 80 volunteers were taken into custody on village farmland, Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli organization, said. The group was told it was in a closed military zone before being detained and taken to a police station. Lander, a Jewish American who served as New York City comptroller and ran for mayor, wrote on X that the military had detained him along with rabbis and volunteers. "We were 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." open image in gallery Brad Lander, candidate for New York’s 10th Congressional District, was detained in the West Bank on Wednesday ( Reuters ) His post included a photo of himself on a bus, showing what appeared to be a police officer and a masked soldier. Lander is an ally of New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and has been critical of Israel 's conduct in the war in Gaza. He is the Democratic party's nominee for New York's 10th congressional district in the US House of Representatives, in the November 3 midterm elections. Anton Goodman, Rabbis for Human Rights Acting Director, told Reuters that Lander had been released. Everyone else was being held at a police station in an Israeli settlement, he said. Those who were not Israeli or Palestinian citizens were expected to be taken later to an Israeli military base, he added. T'ruah, a Jewish North American rights group, said the volunteers included US and Israeli citizens who were accompanying local Palestinian farmers as an act of solidarity. The farmers face the threat of violence from Israeli settlers, it said. Israelis and Palestinians have also been detained, along with Rabbi Jill Jacobs, chief executive of T'ruah. The group, which includes 33 US citizens along with a UK and a Canadian citizen, was "very peacefully" picking olives for around two hours before Israeli forces arrived. "We were obviously not doing anything violent but just the very act of picking olives together with Palestinian farmers was apparently disturbing for some," Jacobs, a 51 year-old conservative rabbi from Manhattan, told Reuters by phone. The group was taken to the police station on two separate buses, she said. Some had since been taken inside, while others, like Jacobs, were being held on a bus outside the station. As far as she knew, the police had not made any formal accusations against the group, Jacobs said. It was not clear to them why they had been detained or whether they would be charged. It was not immediately clear why the area had been declared a closed military zone. Rabbis for Human Rights said the group could not have known before arriving and volunteered to leave. Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians surge The volunteers were detained as Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians and other civilians in the West Bank are surging. The surge prompted calls over the weekend by US Secretary Marco Rubio for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government to crack down on the violence. An American photojournalist for the Washington Post covering a Palestinian olive harvest on Friday was beaten by settlers. European diplomats and a French mayor were attacked at another Palestinian olive harvest by settlers on Saturday. Palestinians were attacked by settlers in both incidents. Israeli police announced on Tuesday that it had made ten arrests in connection with the weekend violence. Olives are the backbone of Palestinian agriculture, according to the Palestinian Authority's agriculture ministry. The sector accounts for around 8% of GDP and more than 60,000 jobs, the ministry said.