Brad Lander, a Democratic House nominee in New York City, was detained on Wednesday in the West Bank by the Israeli military while he participated in an international delegation to harvest olives alongside Palestinian farmers.
Mr. Lander shared news of his detention on social media, where he posted a photo of himself on a bus and said he was with a group of rabbis and other volunteers. In a phone interview, he said he had been detained for roughly three hours and then released, but that dozens of Israeli and international participants in the solidarity mission remained in custody.
“I was eventually released and I was told I was being given a warning, that my actions were illegal and wrong, and that we had created a public disturbance and gone where we weren’t supposed to go,” Mr. Lander said in an interview from the Palestinian town of Beit Jala in the West Bank.
Mr. Lander said that officials at an Israeli military facility in the West Bank “told me specifically that they were releasing me because I’m a public official” but that he had protested because “I hadn’t done anything different from anyone else and I certainly didn’t deserve any special treatment.”
“The rabbis and others are still there in detention and we don’t know — obviously they’re under threat of deportation, and all we were doing was harvesting olives,” he added.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the volunteers’ detention but said it would release a statement on Wednesday.
The international volunteers were being held at the Etzion military base in the West Bank, and the Israeli detainees were being held at the Beitar Illit police station in Israel, according to the steering committee for Protect the Harvest, a group that organizes the solidarity missions.
Mr. Lander said the volunteers had been detained in an olive grove between an Israeli settlement and a Palestinian village. He said the group had harvested olives on Monday and Tuesday in another area of the West Bank without incident.
The delegation was organized in part by several progressive groups, including Israelis for Peace and Rabbis for Human Rights. Mr. Lander said it included about 60 volunteers, including 40 foreign nationals. Most of those were Americans, he said.
In the years since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas led an attack on southern Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and another 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities, the West Bank has been the site of increasing violence by Israeli settlers that has driven out entire Palestinian communities.
The violence has surged in recent months. Within the last week, settlers in the West Bank have attacked and badly injured a Washington Post journalist, Heidi Levine, who was covering the olive harvest, and also attacked a group of European officials and diplomats who were attending the harvest in solidarity with Palestinians. Since late September, when the harvest began, more than 80 violent episodes involving Israeli soldiers and settlers have been reported, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group.
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.
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