Brad Lander, Democratic House Nominee, Briefly Detained by Israeli Forces During West Bank Olive Harvest

Brad Lander, the Democratic nominee for New York's 10th Congressional District, was briefly detained by the Israel Defense Forces on Wednesday, Oct. 21, while harvesting olives with volunteers for Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank, he and his campaign said.

Lander, a former New York City comptroller, said he was released with a warning, NBC News and ABC News reported. "I've been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers. We were simply harvesting olives in a grove near Nehalim in the West Bank," he wrote on social media, sharing a selfie from the bus taking the group away. "The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn't a crime under any law I know."

Lander was taking part in Protect the Harvest, a nonprofit effort that helps Palestinian farmers harvest olives, along with Rabbis for Human Rights and other groups, according to ABC News. He told NBC News he was with more than 40 international volunteers, including Americans, and 28 Israelis. The group had harvested without incident on Monday and Tuesday, he told reporters.

After about two hours of harvesting Wednesday, Lander said, the group spotted what he believed was a security car from a nearby Israeli settlement. Soldiers and police then arrived, asked for passports, loaded the volunteers onto a bus and drove them to a military station, NBC News reported. Lander said the group was not asked to leave before being detained. Israeli authorities told him the group had been "causing a disturbance of public order," he said.

"But I assure you, all we were doing was harvesting olives," Lander told NBC News. Later, he posted that the IDF had released him "with a 'warning,' apparently because of my public profile." "I told them I wasn't even a congressmember yet, just a nominee," he wrote.

The IDF said soldiers, border police and other officers detained the harvesters "due to the security risk posed by conducting an uncoordinated harvest near an Israeli community." "Harvesting in this area requires a request to be submitted to the relevant authorities in advance of the start of the olive harvest season," it said, according to NBC News. In a statement quoted by ABC News, the IDF said the congressional candidate "was released once the matter was brought to our attention" and that it viewed "the arrival of dozens of activists as an act intended solely to provoke."

Israel's Foreign Ministry called the episode a "stunt." "His own team contacted Israeli representatives in the United States ahead of his visit and was explicitly informed that proper coordination with the relevant authorities was required. He chose to ignore those instructions," the ministry said, according to ABC News.

At a news conference, Lander said the ministry's statement contained "multiple lies." He said he had informed the U.S. Embassy of his trip and received no direction to coordinate the harvest with Israeli authorities. "We didn't go through a checkpoint. We didn't pass any Israeli military or any kind of security. There was no notice that this was a security area," he said.

"We came to accompany farmers to land they have not been able to reach in three years, and after two hours of quiet harvesting large forces arrived and closed the area. No one could have known about this order in advance," said Anton Goodman, acting executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights. The grove had not been harvested since the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, according to Lander and Protect the Harvest.

A Protect the Harvest spokesperson, Beck Strober, told NBC News that the Israeli members of the group will not be allowed to return to the West Bank for 28 days. Lander later said everyone in the delegation had been released, but that the ban "means they will be unable to participate in the olive harvest."

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who endorsed Lander, said in a statement that he was thankful Lander had been released but that other New Yorkers had remained detained. A State Department spokesman told ABC News the department was "aware of reports of Americans detained in the West Bank" and was tracking the situation.

The detention came after a week of high-profile Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians and others, including one that injured Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, NBC News reported. A United Nations report in July said more than 900 Palestinians had been injured in settler attacks since the start of the year. Lander won the Democratic primary in June over Rep. Dan Goldman and faces Republican Jennifer Moore on Nov. 3.