Israel deports 32 foreign activists who helped Palestinian olive harvest

RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories (AFP) — Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister Yariv Levin said Wednesday he had ordered the deportation of 32 foreign activists who had helped Palestinians harvest olives in the occupied West Bank, on the grounds they violated a military order.

Levin said the deportation order came after a complaint filed by Northern West Bank Settlements Council President Yossi Dagan, who said the activists were “anarchists who carried out provocations in the Samaria area.”

Rudy Schulkind, a 30-year-old British national among the deported, told AFP he had come to the West Bank to support Palestinian farmers.

This year’s olive season has been particularly violent, with several acts of vandalism and attacks from Israeli settlers.

Foreign activists often provide a presence meant to deter these incidents in rural West Bank areas.

Schulkind said he was held 72 hours by Israeli forces before being deported on Oct. 19.

“We were arrested after they declared the area we were harvesting in as a military zone,” he said, alleging that this was a common Israeli tactic against Palestinians.

He added that all 32 international volunteers were arrested in an olive grove near the West Bank city of Nablus.

Schulkind said that he and the other volunteers “were never brought before a judge” during their detention.

Minister Levin said the deportation was co-signed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, and accused the activists of violating “a military commander’s order” and of belonging to the Union of Agricultural Work Committees.

UAWC is a Palestinian nonprofit organization that focuses on agricultural development.

Israel labelled it a terrorist organization in 2021, along with five other NGOs, in a ruling condemned by the U.N.

Schulkind did not disclose which organization he came with, but Fuad Abu Seif, general director of UAWC, told AFP the volunteers came under a so-called “national campaign” organized by many Palestinian NGOs and the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture.

Abu Seif said the UAWC is a member of that campaign, but not an organizer.

For its part, the Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the arrests.

Bills on annexing West Bank advance

Israeli lawmakers on Wednesday voted in favor of advancing two bills on annexing the occupied West Bank, an ambition openly promoted by far-right ministers in recent months.

The vote came with U.S. Vice President JD Vance visiting Israel to shore up a Gaza ceasefire brokered by President Donald Trump, who has made clear he would not back annexation of the West Bank.

“I will not allow Israel to annex the West Bank,” Trump told reporters at the White House in September. “It’s not going to happen.”

Israeli media reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called on lawmakers from his Likud party to abstain from voting.

In a statement, Likud called the votes “another provocation by the opposition aimed at damaging our relations with the United States”.

“True sovereignty will be achieved not through a showy law for the record, but through proper work on the ground,” it added.

During a preliminary reading on Wednesday, lawmakers voted in favour of examining two bills, which means they will be brought forward for further readings in parliament.

The first text, passed by 32-9, proposed annexing Maale Adumim, a large Israeli settlement home to some 40,000 people just east of Jerusalem.

The second proposal to annex the entire West Bank was supported by 25 ministers while 24 voted against.

The Knesset, as the parliament is known, has 120 members.

Far-right members of Netanyahu’s cabinet have openly called for annexation of the Palestinian territory, occupied by Israel since 1967.

“Mr. Prime Minister. The Knesset has spoken. The people have spoken,” Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich posted on X.

“The time has come to impose full sovereignty over all of Judea and Samaria — the inheritance of our ancestors — and to promote peace agreements in exchange for peace with our neighbors with strength,” he said, using the Israeli Biblical term for the West Bank.

All of Israel’s settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law.

In August, Israel approved a major settlement project between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem in an area of the Palestinian territory that the international community has warned threatens the viability of a future Palestinian state.

At a signing ceremony in September, Netanyahu vowed that there would be no Palestinian state.

“We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state, this place belongs to us,” he said at the event in Maale Adumim.

By Agence France-Presse