Jewish US congressional candidate briefly detained while joining Palestinian olive harvest

Jewish US congressional candidate Brad Lander was detained on Wednesday along with dozens of other Jewish American and Israeli activists while accompanying Palestinians harvesting olives in the central West Bank.

By evening, all but four of the activists were freed.

The incident took place in Nahalin, a village south of Bethlehem, as Palestinians were gathering olives accompanied by around 80 volunteers, according to Israeli rights organization Rabbis for Human Rights and Jewish North American organization T’ruah.

Lander, who is the Democratic Party nominee for New York’s 10th congressional district in the upcoming midterm elections, posted a selfie on X from the bus full of detainees, writing that they “were simply harvesting olives in a grove” when they were detained.

“The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know,” added Lander.

Lander is a self-described liberal Zionist, the former New York City comptroller and an ally of Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

He was released by authorities several hours after he was detained, but not before his social media post garnered significant attention and prompted fresh criticism of the Israeli government and the situation in the West Bank.

I’ve been released from IDF custody with a “warning,” apparently because of my public profile (I told them I wasn’t even a congressmember yet, just a nominee).

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But several dozen rabbis & participants harvesting olives with me are still in detention. For harvesting olives. They… pic.twitter.com/BcSNkTYUxF

— Brad Lander (@bradlander) October 21, 2026

Even after Lander was released, the roughly 80 other activists remained held at a police station in the Beitar Illit settlement for questioning and processing for several more hours.

“If someone at the Foreign Ministry, in the IDF or at the Population and Immigration Authority doesn’t stop this madness, it will cause enormous damage to relations with Jews of the United States — and entirely justifiably so,” Democrats MK Gilad Kariv fumed on X.

The IDF and Israel Police claimed that the harvest on land belonging to the Palestinian village was not coordinated with authorities as required, leading to the arrests. But a map distributed to Palestinian farmers by the Israel Defense Ministry’s Civil Administration unit shows that the area where the group was detained was not actually one that required prior coordination.

Lander confirmed his release in a follow-up post on X, saying he was sent off “with a ‘warning’ — apparently because of my public profile (I told them I wasn’t even a congressmember yet, just a nominee).”

He called for the release of all those detained.

“To be clear: Palestinians face far worse consequences every day. These detentions by the IDF are one more attempt to undermine Palestinians’ right to harvest their olive groves, travel on their roads and live in their homes. Yet one more element of escalating, and very clearly state-sponsored ethnic cleansing,” Lander added.

Groups of foreign and left-wing Israeli activists have been joining Palestinian olive harvesters in growing numbers to try and protect them from settler attacks, which have gone largely unchecked.

The delegation in Nahalin was organized by Rabbis for Human Rights, whose spokesperson insisted to The Times of Israel that no prior coordination was required for the area where the group was harvesting olives on Wednesday.

The decision to initially release only Lander indicated that his status as a candidate for the US Congress played a part, as Israel is keen to avoid a further international incident after widely covered settler attacks on reporters and foreign diplomats over the weekend.

Police later confirmed that this was the case, saying in a statement that Lander was immediately released upon learning that he was a congressional candidate, without making any mention of the status of the dozens of other detainees.

Police added that officers were “currently reviewing the incident in consultation with the IDF, the Foreign Ministry, the Interior Ministry and other relevant authorities, with the aim of preventing friction, public disturbances, and incidents that could result in international repercussions.”

On Wednesday evening, police said in an update that 32 of the detained activists had been questioned and released subject to exclusion orders preventing their return to the area. Another 40 were released without issue earlier in the day, the police said, after “no grounds for suspicion” arose during the screening process.

Four other activists were to remain in police custody overnight, police said, due to evidence of “anti-Israel activity” online, including “having expressed support for organizations opposed to Israel.”

The four will be transferred to the Population and Immigration Authority for a hearing on Thursday and will be deported from Israel, the police statement added.

Police defended the detentions, issuing a statement insisting that the activists had entered an area near the fence of the Beitar Illit settlement that required approval before entering.

After reporters began publishing the Civil Administration’s map showing that wasn’t the case, the IDF issued its own statement arguing that the area in question wasn’t marked on the map because Palestinians had never asked to harvest their olives in that section before.

It was unclear why the army expected Palestinians to request authorization to enter an area that Israeli authorities did not say required coordination ahead of time.

The IDF said it had now provided the owner of the land plots near Beitar Illit with the necessary contact information for coordinating such harvests with the army in the future.

The Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist denominations of Judaism in the US issued a joint statement condemning the detention of the activists, among whom were nine rabbis from their movements.

“That farmers need to have others serve as a protective presence from violent settlers is itself a betrayal of Jewish values. Yet recent settler attacks on Palestinian harvesters and those working alongside them — and authorities’ failure or refusal to stop such attacks — have made that protective presence necessary,” read the joint statement.

“Our global memberships span the political and ideological spectrum. Yet we are united in opposing all forms of terrorism across the region and in our conviction that detaining rabbis working for justice undermines Israel’s democratic values,” the groups added.

“We call on the Israeli government to release the detainees immediately, enable the productive harvesting of land, and turn its law enforcement efforts toward the violent settlers who have long been attacking Palestinian farmers and, more recently, journalists and diplomats,” the statement said.

According to Rabbis for Human Rights, 52 of the detained activists were foreign citizens. They included 30 US citizens as well as citizens of the UK and Canada, according to the group.

A spokesperson for the US Embassy in Jerusalem said it was aware of reports that US citizens had been detained and was monitoring the situation but declined further comment, citing privacy and other considerations.

“The Trump administration has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Foreign Ministry wrote on X: “This was not about harvesting olives. It was about harvesting headlines.”

The ministry repeated the claim, now debunked, that Lander had entered a “restricted security area.”

“What makes this stunt even more outrageous is that his own team contacted Israeli representatives in the United States ahead of his visit and was explicitly informed that proper coordination with the relevant authorities was required. He chose to ignore those instructions,” the Foreign Ministry argued.

“Had anyone been injured as a result of his reckless political theater, Lander would undoubtedly have been among the first to demand that Israeli authorities intervene and provide protection,” the post continued. “Brad Lander came looking for a confrontation. Now he is pretending to be its victim.”