Some 80 masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villagers gathered for the annual olive harvest at Abu Falah, in the occupied West Bank, on Friday — burning olive trees, launching rocks from slings and injuring at least two people, including a Washington Post photojournalist, in a coordinated assault witnessed by Reuters journalists on the scene. Palestinian medics said the two injured were taken to hospitals in the Ramallah area. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment.
What did Reuters' witnesses see at Abu Falah?
The settlers, clad in black with their faces masked and some carrying gas canisters, descended from a hill above a terraced olive grove where villagers had gathered to pick ripe fruit, Reuters witnesses reported. They took positions in front of the terraced lanes of trees, and some used slings to launch rocks toward the villagers, who retreated down the hill and threw stones back to defend themselves. "The settlers want to attack us and force us from our homes," Moutaz Abdelhadi, 42, a farmer who witnessed the attack, told Reuters. Partway through, at least two Israeli military jeeps sped through the area as villagers ran out of their way — and the attack continued after the military's arrival, with Israeli soldiers firing tear gas in the direction of the Palestinians, the sound of live gunfire audible in the area, and a Reuters photographer seeing at least one armed settler fire a gun. Palestinian medics said two people were injured, one of them Heidi Levine, a photojournalist with the Washington Post; the newspaper did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Was this the only harvest attack on Friday?
No. The Abu Falah assault followed a similar attack on Friday morning near the village of Turmus Ayya, where settlers burned three cars after attacking a group of farmers harvesting olives, Reuters reported. A witness there, Salah Abu Niswa, said the settlers had caught a man by himself and begun to beat him. The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment on that attack either. Friday's two attacks come nine days after a Palestinian farmer was killed during the harvest near Burqa and two days after settlers burned the mosque in Mikhmas — incidents this site documented on October 16 in its account of the harvest campaign.
How large is the harvest-season campaign now?
Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has surged, with at least 170 attacks recorded since September 27, around the start of the annual olive harvest, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli settlements monitoring group, as reported by Reuters. Reuters reported that settlers have been emboldened by the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has overseen a rapid expansion of settlements and smaller outposts across the West Bank; Netanyahu has criticised the violence but taken few steps to crack down on incidents that have drawn international condemnation and sanction plans by longtime Israeli allies, including Britain. The West Bank is home to some 500,000 settlers and at least 3 million Palestinians; UN bodies and most countries deem the settlements illegal under international law regarding military occupations, while Israel rejects this, viewing the territory as disputed rather than occupied.
This account rests on Reuters' eyewitness reporting from Abu Falah, opened and read in full; the injury figures are Palestinian medics' figures as reported by Reuters, and the Israeli military's non-response to requests for comment is stated as Reuters reported it. The 170-attack figure is Yesh Din's count as reported by Reuters.
