Overview
- Rights group Yesh Din and monitors report a sharp rise in physical attacks on harvesters and widespread crop theft this season with hundreds of incidents recorded and soldiers present in a notable share of cases.
- Farmers describe masked settlers beating pickers, loading sacks of olives and driving them to nearby outposts such as Avichai Farm where the fruit is pressed into oil for sale.
- Settler social‑media posts encouraged Israelis to harvest West Bank olives and deliver them to outpost presses, linking the practice to claims of expanding Jewish control over the land.
- Israeli officials say some investigations and arrests have been opened, while a government spokesperson argued Jews harvesting in the area do not constitute theft, creating a split between promises of probes and statements that normalize settler acts.
- The surge in attacks compounds a longer pattern of outpost expansion and military access rules that block many Palestinians from reaching groves and that rights groups and the UN say threatens livelihoods, heritage and legal recourse.