Palestine weekly: Israeli settlers attack journalist and diplomats

Settler olive harvest attacks top 2025 total, journalist and diplomats attacked as Israel halts Gaza commercial imports. Save Share With more than a month left of the olive harvest season to go, United Nations deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Friday that the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had recorded more than 200 Israeli attacks on Palestinian farmers since September 1, eclipsing the 185 that OCHA documented across the entire 2025 harvest season. The attacks have already killed one Palestinian, injured more than 120 and damaged more than 2,500 trees. The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission recorded 34 Israeli attacks on Friday thatinjured at least 19 people, with another 40 on Saturday. Israeli settlers are carrying out such widescale attacks and thefts with backing from some religious figures. On Friday, Rabbi Dov Lior, spiritual guide of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party,ruledthat settlers may take olives from Palestinian orchards, proclaiming “Jews are permitted to harvest olives even in areas far from Jewish settlements in order to publicly demonstrate our ownership of the land and thereby fulfill the commandment of conquering the land”. “An olive tree today is more significant in the campaign for Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank] than an M16 rifle,” said one post in a settler chat group this week. “Settlers are stealing the Palestinian olive crop on a vast scale, never seen before in my 22-year history of working on this issue,” said Sarit Michaeli, formerly the international advocacy director of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Under this ideological push, dozens of attacks on olive harvesters have been reported each day. On October 16, in Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, about 80 masked settlers armed with clubscharged at Palestinians picking olives. During the attack, Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, 63, fell and was beaten for more than 10 minutes by settlers, videos andher own accountattest. She suffered broken ribs and needed hand surgery, while her camera, phone and passport were stolen. Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak reported that soldiers later shot a village council member, Abdel Jaber Obeid, in the thigh. Then, on Saturday, masked settlers with clubs attacked a delegation visiting Taybeh, east of Ramallah, that included Belgium’s consul general, French and Polish diplomats, and church representatives....