Palestinian civil society organizations have condemned the Israeli occupation’s detention and deportation of 32 international volunteers who were accompanying Palestinian farmers during the annual olive harvest in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement issued Thursday by the National Committee for the 2025 Olive Harvest Campaign, the organizations said the volunteers—citizens of the UK, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Spain, Germany, and the United States—were engaged in peaceful, community-requested activities.
These included escorting Palestinian families to their farmland, assisting with olive picking, and documenting attacks by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers.
The volunteers were deported on October 21, according to coordinating organizations and legal teams.
Their removal, the statement said, reflects a broader pattern in which Israeli forces and colonizers act in tandem to target rural Palestinian communities, obstruct access to farmland, and suppress international witnesses—particularly in Area C, where land confiscation and forced displacement are intensifying.
Detainees reported being singled out for their role in documenting and deterring colonizer violence.
The 2025 olive harvest season has already seen a sharp escalation in such attacks, alongside movement restrictions, in violations repeatedly documented by UN agencies and independent monitors.
The statement emphasized that access to farmland and the right to harvest are essential to Palestinian livelihoods, cultural identity, and food sovereignty. Israel’s disruption of the harvest through violence, military closures, and arrests, it said, is part of a systematic strategy to undermine Palestinian economic survival.
Civil society groups warned that the deportation of international volunteers undermines civilian protection and conceals ongoing violations from global scrutiny.
They described the targeting of protective accompaniment as a flagrant breach of international humanitarian and human rights law, including the rights to freedom of association and expression, and the obligation to protect civilians under occupation.
The organizations called on the international community to:
- Ensure safe and timely access for Palestinian farmers to all agricultural lands, including those near colonies and behind the separation wall.
- Take effective measures to prevent settler violence.
- Launch independent investigations into attacks on farmers and volunteers.
- Hold perpetrators and complicit officials accountable.
- Guarantee unimpeded access for international observers, journalists, and human rights defenders.
- Impose sanctions on those responsible for systematic abuse, in line with third-state obligations not to aid or recognize unlawful situations.
Despite the deportations, the statement affirmed that the olive harvest continues. Farmers remain on their land, and dozens of international volunteers are still accompanying families.
The presence of these international volunteers is vital, as they provide protective accompaniment that helps deter colonizer violence, document abuses, and bring global attention to the ongoing violations.
Their involvement strengthens the resilience of Palestinian farmers and underscores the importance of international solidarity in upholding human rights and agricultural livelihoods. The campaign is expected to expand in the coming days as planned.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Yariv Levin and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir publicly claimed responsibility for the deportations, citing alleged violations of a military order and the volunteers’ affiliation with the “Union of Agricultural Work Committees,” an organization Israel controversially designated as “terrorist,” a baseless label widely rejected by international human rights bodies.
According to the Colonization & Wall Resistance Commission, Israeli forces and illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers have launched 158 assaults on Palestinian olive harvesters since the beginning of the current season.
These attacks have involved a spectrum of violations, such as physical assaults, mass detentions, and shootings. At least 74 incidents directly targeted olive groves, with 29 involving the destruction, bulldozing, or uprooting of trees and farmland. In total, 765 olive trees were reported destroyed.
The United Nations and various human rights organizations have warned that Palestinian olive harvesters are facing increased danger during this season.
Ajith Sunghay, who leads the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territory, stated on Tuesday that “violence by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers has surged dramatically in both scale and frequency.”
He added that just two weeks into the 2025 harvest, there have already been serious assaults by armed colonizers targeting Palestinian men, women, children, and international solidarity volunteers.
According to UN estimates, between 80,000 and 100,000 Palestinian families depend on the olive harvest as a vital source of income.
