Congressional candidate Brad Lander said Wednesday in a post on X that he was detained in the West Bank by the Israel Defense Forces while participating in an olive harvest.
\n\n“I’ve been detained by the IDF, along with a group of rabbis & volunteers,” Lander said in the post, sharing a picture of himself on a bus.
\n\n“We were simply harvesting olives in a grove” in the West Bank, he continued. “The occupation is a crime under international law. Harvesting olives isn’t a crime under any law I know.”
\n\nNBC News has reached out to Lander and his campaign for further information and comment. The IDF did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
\n\nLander previously posted that he was visiting the West Bank with the “Protect the Harvest” coalition, which he said was “bringing people together from around the world to help Palestinian farmers harvest olives in the face of state-sanctioned settler terrorism.”
\n\n“Our goals for the trip are to help protect the olive harvest — and to shed a light on the reality of the occupation,” he said in a post to X on Monday.
\n\nLast week saw two high-profile Israeli settler attacks, including one in which…
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