This year's harvest season is in full swing and has, according to, among others, the newspaper Haaretz, been marked by violence and vandalism. The newspaper writes that at least 41 attacks on Palestinians have been carried out by Israeli settlers in October.
Foreign activists have, according to AFP, for several years tried to protect Palestinians during the harvest – because the Israeli military, according to the Palestinians, does not do so.
The military protects the settlers. They do nothing to stop them, says Maher, a Palestinian farmer, to Haaretz.
Israel's Minister of Justice Yariv Levin says that the decision to expel the 32 foreigners was made after complaints from a leader of settlers in the northern part of the occupied West Bank. He, Yossi Dagan, accuses them of being "anarchists who provoke in Samaria".
One of the expelled, the British citizen Rudy Schulkind, says to AFP that the 32 were arrested in an olive grove near the city of Nablus and that they have been accused of belonging to the agricultural organization UAWC, which has been terrorist-stamped by Israel – a decision that was condemned by the UN.
In August, the Israeli military destroyed several thousand olive trees belonging to Palestinians, citing that they wanted to strengthen security around a settler road on the site.
