Defense Min. gives instructions to ban pro-Palestinian activists from West Bank during olive harvest, Yesha Council says

The Yesha Council representing settlement municipal bodies in the West Bank says that Defense Minister Israel Katz has given instructions to issue exclusion orders against pro-Palestinian activists seeking to assist Palestinian olive growers during the harvest season, which is now underway.

Multiple spokespeople for Katz and the Defense Ministry fail to respond to requests for confirmation that such instructions had been given.

Yesha Council head Israel Ganz asked Katz earlier this week to prevent activists “who are coming to the olive harvest area to create provocations and confrontations.”

Ganz noted that the Global Sumud Flotilla organization, which has twice tried to break the blockade on Gaza with large flotillas, is assisting activists who wish to come to the region during the olive harvest season, along with other groups including Go Palestine, Protect the Harvest, Faz3a and the International Solidarity Movement.

“Following the request, the defense minister directed that action be taken to issue administrative exclusion orders against activists whose activities are found to endanger public order and security in the area,” Yesha says.

Neither Yesha nor the spokespeople contacted by The Times of Israel for Katz and the defense ministry have replied to questions regarding how “endangering public order and security” has been defined.

“We will not allow extremist activists—whether Israeli or foreign—to reach the region to instigate provocations and confrontations. The olive harvest season will not be turned into a tool for creating deliberate friction on the ground,” Ganz says.

Despite Ganz’s comments, Israeli civil rights organizations have recorded significant spikes in extremist settler violence against Palestinian olive growers during the olive harvest season in recent years, part of an apparent effort to deprive them of an important source of income.

The Yesh Din group has recorded 109 incidents of alleged violence by settler extremists and IDF soldiers against Palestinians in 75 West Bank towns connected to the current olive harvest season between September 27 and October 6.

In the 2025 harvest season, there were multiple incidents in which the IDF declared entire Palestinian towns to be closed military zones in order to stop activists assisting olive growers on the grounds that they would initiate “provocations” and “confrontations.”

Numerous activists were arrested and deported for violating the orders in the 2025 season, some of whom were banned from returning to Israel, including some Jewish activists.