JERUSALEM, October 21 (Aalimi Nation) – Brad Lander, a Democratic candidate for a New York congressional seat, said on Wednesday that Israeli forces released him with a warning after detaining him in the occupied West Bank while he joined Palestinian farmers on an olive harvest. Dozens of other volunteers were still being held hours later, according to organisers.

Lander, a former New York City comptroller who is the Democratic nominee for New York's 10th Congressional District, said he had joined a group harvesting olives near Nahalin, outside Bethlehem. The Israeli group Rabbis for Human Rights said about 80 volunteers, among them Americans, Israelis, Palestinians, Britons and Canadians, were detained by soldiers and police. Lander said more than 40 international volunteers and 28 Israelis were with him.

He said the group had been working for about two hours when soldiers and police arrived, asked for passports and took them by bus to a military station. He said he was held for about three hours and released, but that around 60 people remained in detention hours later.

Organisers from the Protect the Harvest coalition said the harvest was peaceful and that soldiers later declared the area a closed military zone. They said the Palestinian family concerned had been unable to reach its land since October 2023.

The Israeli military said the group was detained because an uncoordinated harvest near an Israeli community posed a security risk, and that such activity requires advance approval to preserve security and public order.

Israel's Foreign Ministry called the episode a "calculated political provocation." It said Lander had entered a restricted security area without the required coordination and had ignored instructions passed on through Israeli representatives in the United States. "This was not about harvesting olives. It was about harvesting headlines," the ministry said. Israeli media noted that official maps indicated the area did not need prior military coordination, a discrepancy in the ministry's account.

Lander rejected the characterisation. "All we were doing was harvesting olives," he said, adding that officials told the group its actions were illegal and caused a disturbance of public order. He said he believed his public profile was the reason for his release and described the detentions as part of what he called state-sponsored ethnic cleansing.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, chief executive of the rabbinical rights group T'ruah, called the military's actions "an outrageous abuse of power." The group said about a dozen American rabbis affiliated with it were among those detained.

The olive harvest, which runs through autumn, has become a frequent flashpoint in the West Bank, where Palestinians and rights groups have reported rising settler violence.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli government on the status of those still held, nor from the US Embassy in Jerusalem. Lander has called for the immediate release of the remaining volunteers. He faces voters in the November 3 midterm elections, and the episode is likely to draw attention to US lawmakers' positions on West Bank policy.