An Israeli soldier stops and questions international activists in the West Bank village of At-Tuwani, October 20, 2024. (Avishay Mohar/ActiveStills)

Israel has intensified its efforts to disrupt the work of international solidarity activists in the occupied West Bank in recent weeks, especially those supporting Palestinians during the olive harvest. Since the start of October, eight foreign activists have been detained; five of them were subsequently either deported or pressured to leave the country, while the other three were banned from the West Bank for varying lengths of time.

The detentions represent an escalation in Israel’s restrictions on international access to the occupied territory, a policy now facilitated by a special “task force” created in April by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir. Specifically targeting foreign activists in the West Bank, it operates under Israel’s Shai (West Bank) Central Police Unit and coordinates with the Population and Immigration Authority to expedite detentions and deportations.

The task force was set up shortly after the Biden administration and other foreign governments began imposing sanctions on violent Israeli settlers and settler organizations, and appears to be a direct response to it. According to data from the Human Rights Defenders Fund, 15 foreign human rights activists have been detained and then deported or coerced into leaving the country under the task force’s authority.

+972 spoke with some of these activists, who recounted threats, intimidation, and false accusations during interrogations by Israeli security officers. Several say they were accused of being “terrorists,” “Israel haters,” “Hamas supporters,” and of intending to “attack Jews and soldiers.” In some cases, police presented them with photographs revealing that they closely monitor activists both on the ground and through their social media, looking for all possible grounds to detain and deport them.

A lawyer representing some of the activists told +972 that there was insufficient evidence for the police to extend the activists’ detention or to file indictments against them within the framework of criminal proceedings. That is why they were quickly transferred to the Population and Immigration Authority, an arm of the Interior Ministry, where the threshold for visa denial or deportation is lower.

Israeli soldiers disperse Palestinian farmers and activists, preventing them from picking olives during the annual harvest season, in the West Bank village of Qusra, October 29, 2024. (Flash90)

Since October 7, more internationals have been coming to the West Bank for the purpose of “protective presence” activism, joining organizations like the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and Faz3a. These groups assist Palestinian shepherds and farmers in rural areas, aiming to deter and document the military and settler violence that serves to forcibly displace local residents.

Foreign activists seeking to enter the West Bank have to pass through Israel’s border controls, usually via Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv or the Allenby Crossing with Jordan, and enter with a tourist visa. If the Israeli authorities conclude at the border that the purpose of the visit is to join solidarity activities with Palestinians, the foreigners may be barred from entering.

In March, a subcommittee of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee — convened by Religious Zionist Party MK Zvi Sukkot, who was himself linked to settler attacks on Palestinians before becoming a politician — held a discussion titled “Agitating activity of activists in Judea and Samaria,” using the Biblical term for the West Bank. During the discussion, the commander of the Shai Central Police Unit, Avishai Moalem, claimed that half of the complaints filed by Palestinians against Israeli settlers since the start of the war were deemed false. He further alleged that the complaints were primarily the work of “anarchists and extreme left-wing organizations.”

According to Moalem, such complaints are part of a “broad phenomenon” that disturbs the army and damages its image. As evidence of this, he pointed to the foreign sanctions imposed on various settlers over the past year.

The special task force, which Ben Gvir has referred to as “the team for dealing with anarchists,” was set up the following month. The minister explained that its establishment was “consistent with my clear policy of fighting troublemakers,” adding: “My conception is zero tolerance for those who harm security, the settlers, and the State of Israel.”

Jewish settlers seen while Palestinian farmers and activists pick olives during the annual harvest season, in the West Bank village of Burqa, October 20, 2024. (Flash90)

 ‘They were trying to frame us as Hamas supporters — but it wasn’t true’

Two German activists — M., 20, and L., 24 — were arrested on Oct. 2 in the South Hebron Hills, on the private lands of the Huraini family in the village of At-Tuwani (the two requested anonymity for fear of legal or safety repercussions in Germany).

Speaking to +972, they explained that an armed Israeli settler approached them and asked for their passports. The activists refused, doubting the authority of the man who was not wearing uniform, and waited instead for the army to arrive. Later in court, the Israeli police claimed that the man was a soldier.

After being held in the field, the activists were taken to the Hebron police station and later to the custody of the Shai Unit, near the settlement of Ma’ale Adumim. They were not interrogated, but rather taken directly to a criminal court.

Police told the court what the activists were accused of: membership in a prohibited organization (ISM, which is not on the government’s official list of prohibited organizations); ⁠identification with or support of a terrorist organization (given that the file remains secret until an indictment is filed, it’s not clear on what grounds); and obstruction of a soldier while performing his duties (namely, for not handing over their passports immediately to the settler). The court ordered that the activists remain in detention until their interrogation the following day by the Shai Unit.

“They asked if I was a member of some kind of terrorist organization or if I knew people who were, and why I was in Israel,” M. said of the interrogation. The interrogators presented M. with a photograph showing him at a protest in Ramallah. “They printed out a screenshot from Facebook and asked me if I knew the people, what I was doing there, if I knew this was an illegal assembly and related to a terrorist organization.”

Palestinian farmers pick olives during the annual harvest season, as Israeli soldiers roam nearby, in the West Bank village of Burqa, October 20, 2024. (Avishay Mohar/ActiveStills)

M. had his second interrogation later that day. “They printed out a slideshow with pictures of 10 different people,” he recounted. “They asked me if I knew these people, if I knew ISM or am associated with them. My second interrogation was purely about ISM, and they told me this was an illegal organization that supports Hamas.”

L. was presented with the same line of photos, which included images from social media. After returning to Germany, the activists discovered that the photos were from a slideshow created by the right-wing Israeli media outlet Hakol Hayehudi, which +972 has verified.

“At one point they also asked political questions, like if we acknowledge Israel’s right to exist, what we think about October 7, and personal political questions which aren’t related to our case,” L. explained.

M. said the people interrogating her never wore uniforms and were trying to get access to her phone. “From the moment we first got to the Shai police station, they asked us for the password for our cell phones and we refused. Later, I found out that they actually used Cellebrite [a tech company that produces surveillance software] to break into my phone. They printed out sheets with photos that had the word ‘Cellebrite’ on, and they told me they had found them in my phone gallery.

“I am 100 percent sure that, except for two photos, all the other photos they showed me were not taken by me,” L. continued. “And I’m pretty sure that they screenshotted them off social media. Some even had the Instagram logo. It was stuff that groups would put on social media for different demonstrations all over the world, like a demo marking one year since October 7. There was even one in French — I don’t understand French, and I told them so.”

According to L., the aim of the interrogation was clear: “They were trying so hard to frame us as Hamas supporters, and it was very obvious they wanted to do something to us or get us out of the country. But it wasn’t true.”

Palestinian farmers pick olives during the annual harvest season, as Israeli soldiers roam nearby, in the West Bank village of Burqa, October 20, 2024. (Avishay Mohar/ActiveStills)

In the second court hearing in Jerusalem, on Oct. 3, the police representative said the “illegal organization” the two activists were suspected of being part of is ISM, claiming it was illegal both inside Israel and in the West Bank. Their detention was extended by three days.

After five days in prison, the two “agreed” to leave, realizing deportation was inevitable. “The police officers and prison guards really treated us like enemies of the state,” L. said, describing the psychological pressure they endured. “We are very aware, compared to Palestinian prisoners, [our conditions] were really nothing. But we still felt like we were treated badly in order to pressure us. For the first 24 hours, we didn’t get food.”

Two hours after the Germans were deported into Jordan through Allenby Crossing, Ben Gvir tweeted a photo of the activists with their faces blurred, which an Israeli policeman had taken right before they were brought to the crossing. The minister claimed that they were arrested inside a settlement, which was not true.

The post read: “2 terror-supporting anarchists with German citizenship — they entered on Rosh Hashanah eve into a residential farm settlement in the South Hebron Hills, [where they] disturbed and clashed with soldiers. A special team that I established in the Israel Police as soon as the war broke out acted decisively and quickly to arrest and deport them through the Allenby Crossing, and to prevent them from entering the territory of Israel again. That’s the only way it works!”

“Our initial reaction was that we were really glad that [our faces were] censored,” M. explained. “But it was still shocking to see — we didn’t expect that such a high-level figure would post this to their account. He has over 200,000 followers. So it can be a serious issue for us.”

Israeli soldiers disperse Palestinian farmers and activists, preventing them from picking olives during the annual harvest season, in the West Bank village of Qusra, October 29, 2024. (Flash90)

Just a few days earlier, on Oct. 10, at the same spot where the two Germans were arrested, Michael Jacobsen, a 78-year-old American and member of the Veterans For Peace (VFP) organization, was detained by an Israeli reserve soldier. Jacobsen had arrived in the West Bank a week before as part of the international delegation Meta Peace Team (MPT), and was volunteering with ISM.

According to Jacobsen, the soldier told him he was wanted by the police for “endangering the public” and “entering the country illegally,” due to his alleged involvement in the BDS movement, and he was later taken to the Shai Unit. “The interrogator said that I was a member of five terrorist organizations: BDS, ISM, MPT, VPT, and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition,” Jacobsen told +972. “He had an article from an event I took part in when I was in South Korea in 2012.”

After the interrogation, Jacobsen’s lawyer told him that the police didn’t have a case against him, but that he would “sit in jail over Yom Kippur. I would say they forced me out as they didn’t give me another option; armed guards told me to get into the car.” He was then driven to the Allenby Crossing. “I felt the supreme irony of being called a terrorist as a veteran for peace, [and] by an organization that was constantly committing terrorist acts.”

 ‘We will kick you out of Israel for good’

On Oct. 15, Jaxson, a 22-year-old Jewish American, and Anthony Chung, a 26-year-old Korean American, were detained after Israeli soldiers prevented dozens of Palestinian farmers and Faz3a activists from harvesting their olives on private Palestinian land between the villages of Jorish and Qusra, southeast of Nablus.

“I was walking toward the main road and the soldiers yelled at me to stop,” Jaxson recounted. “I was asked what the problem was, and they asked for my passport. There were two settlers also present there who were yelling and filming.” The two were told that they were not allowed to be in the area, and were handcuffed.

“We said ‘You know very well that if it’s a closed military zone, you have to show us the paperwork,’” Jaxson explained. “One of the soldiers pulled out a piece of paper, which he showed me from several feet away, and I also don’t know Hebrew. I asked if I could see it closer, but the police already started arresting us. They were pretty aggressive; they threw me up against a tree and started searching me.”

Israeli forces deploy tear gas to disperse farmers and activists, preventing them from picking olives during the annual harvest season, in the West Bank village of Burqa, October 20, 2024. (Avishay Mohar/ActiveStills)

The two were detained at 10 a.m. and arrived at the Shai police station around 3 p.m.. In the field they were told that they had obstructed a public servant, but at the station more allegations were added: violation of a lawful directive, entering a closed area, and identification with or support of a terrorist organization.

Despite the fact that the special task force was established in order to deal with foreigners, all the activists that spoke with +972 said that their interrogators didn’t speak English, and that the interrogations were conducted with the assistance of a translator brought by the police, either in person or over a WhatsApp call. “Through the interpreter, the questions were also very confusing,” Jaxson explained.

According to Jaxson, their interrogation didn’t focus on their arrest. “They asked if I was a member of any organizations, but they didn’t name anything specific. They were basically asking who tells us where to go for the harvest, who’s in charge, who owns all the olive trees — things that I don’t know.

“They asked if I’ve been to pro-Hamas and anti-Israel demonstrations, and I said no,” Jaxson continued. “They read to me what I was accused of. Then the interrogator said, ‘You’re lying, you came to Israel to attack Jews and engage in terrorism, and we’re going to expel you from the country.’”

At this point, the interrogators presented Jaxson with photographs revealing that he had been followed for months since arriving in August. “It seems they were collecting [photos] from the beginning of my time here to a couple days ago,” he explained. “It’s hard to tell if it’s been something happening from the start or a retroactive investigation, but either way they did a lot of digging. They basically had something from the first day that I actually went anywhere and worked their way up to now.

Israeli forces deploy tear gas to disperse farmers and activists, preventing them from picking olives during the annual harvest season, in the West Bank village of Burqa, October 20, 2024. (Avishay Mohar/ActiveStills)

“It was a combination of press pictures, a photo I believe the police or possibly the army took [of me], and a picture provided by one of the settlers, because I remember him taking it with a phone camera. It was a bit shocking. I didn’t know I mattered that much.”

As Jaxson refused to admit to the accusations, the officer’s approach toward him became harsher. “It was less of an interrogation and more just getting yelled at when I didn’t say the right thing in their mind. The interrogators would especially get angry when I wasn’t agreeing with their phrasing of ‘attacking Jews or the army.’”

After the interrogation, one of the policemen took Jaxson to have his picture taken in front of an Israeli flag while handcuffed — an increasingly common form of punishment and humiliation for detainees since October 7, usually reserved for Palestinians. “While we were waiting, he looked at me and said, ‘Welcome to Israel.’ I didn’t answer, as I was not in interrogation. Then he said, ‘Are you an anarchist?’ and ‘We were here before you, and Israel will be here after you,’ before adding ‘We will kick you out of Israel for good.’”

For Chung, the entire detention and interrogation process was a similarly traumatic experience. “Despite the accusations being about my activity on that day, minus the accusations of supporting a terrorist organization, all the questions they asked me were mostly about how I came here, what I’ve been doing, where I was, what organization I’m with,” he said.

“Eventually, the questions escalated to what places have I gone to, have I attacked Jewish people, have I engaged in violence with police officers, have I been to a demonstration that supports Hamas,” Chung continued. “I said no to all these questions; none of these things are true or based on reality.”

The police eventually asked Chung about his presence in Ramallah, and after he didn’t answer, they presented him with a photo of “someone who appears to be me holding or [standing] behind some demonstration banner in Ramallah. They said ‘You lied — you were at this demonstration that supports Hamas.’

Israeli forces disperse Palestinian farmers and activists, preventing them from picking olives during the annual harvest season, in the West Bank village of Battir, October 25, 2024. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)

“I told the translator, ‘I didn’t go to a demonstration that supports Hamas,’” Chung said. “From what I understood, this was a march that happens every day [in Ramallah’s city center], which I attended because I wanted to show respect for the loss of innocent life in Gaza. And so I don’t know why that picture would have been something that would flag me as a terrorist.

“At some point they stopped asking me questions,” he went on. “They just told me that I am a liar and a terrorist, that I should be kicked out of this country and they’ll make sure that will happen.”

Later that day, the two American activists were taken to the Israeli immigration authorities near the airport. After a short hearing, the authorities decided that their visas to the West Bank will be revoked, and that they will be allowed to stay in Israel until their flights back home, which were already scheduled in a few days’ time.

“We felt that the odds were against us based on the demeanor of the police officers and the soldiers,” Chung said. “They were very antagonistic against us, and it seemed like they proactively wanted to arrest us and get us out of the country.”

 Israeli authorities ‘clearly want revenge’

Michal Pomerantz, an attorney who represented several of the detained or deported American activists, explained that the police’s flimsy accusations would not stand up in court, hence why the activists were transferred to the immigration authorities. “It is also no coincidence that many of them are Americans,” she added, as it shows the Israeli authorities “clearly want revenge for the sanctions [issued by the U.S. on settlers].”

An Israeli soldier forces a photojournalist to move during the annual olive harvest, in the West Bank village of Burqa, October 20, 2024. (Avishay Mohar/ActiveStills)

Pomerantz explained that everyone she represented went through “a shocking and difficult experience. They were treated badly, they spent hours in the sun, they were accused of being Hamas supporters and Israel haters. Some of them did not want to [pursue an appeal process in the courts] because of the unpleasant experience and [the threat of] a prolonged entry ban.”

Netta Golan, a founding member of ISM, said the increased targeting of international activists sheds light on who the Israeli police is defines as “terrorists.” “They blame people who have no connection to violent acts, and they lie and exaggerate to get to the level of ‘supporting terror’ and ‘inciting violence,’” she explained.

“When those allegations are aimed at internationals, [the police] don’t have to prove it, and people are detained and deported,” she continued. “But when the same accusations are leveled toward Palestinians, in the West Bank they are sent to administrative detention [without charge or trial] and tortured and face starvation in prison, and in Gaza they are killed with their children and entire families.”

Golan maintains that the policy against activists is meant to prevent “any documentation and evidence of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, especially of Palestinian herding communities in Area C.”

International solidarity activists are not only at risk of being arrested and deported by Israel, but also of being violently attacked by soldiers and settlers. In September, an Israeli soldier shot dead 26-year-old Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi during a protest in the town of Beita. Eygi became the third ISM volunteer to be killed by Israeli soldiers, and the first in more than two decades.

+972 contacted the Israeli police regarding the treatment of international activists and the accusations against them. A spokesperson only responded: “Israel Police carries out enforcement with all the legal means at its disposal and will not allow harm to the State of Israel, support for terrorism, violation of the law, harm to public order, or interference with the security forces during their operational activities.”

+972 also contacted the Population and Immigration Authority regarding the procedure of deporting international activists. Their response will be added here if and when it is received.

Oren Ziv

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