On Friday, 16 October, groups of settlers moved through several West Bank communities, beating residents and journalists and setting fire to vehicles and olive trees. Families who rely on olive cultivation for their annual income were unable to bring in the harvest after the unrest disrupted the season.
Incidents were recorded across Abu Falah, Turmus Ayya, Burqa, and surrounding communities on the outskirts of Ramallah, where olive growers had gathered for the harvest. According to a television news outlet, approximately 80 individuals wearing black face coverings entered an olive grove in Abu Falah. Among those present, some had brought gas canisters while others launched stones at Palestinian civilians using slings. A photographer present at the scene documented at least one individual carrying a weapon discharging a firearm on camera.
When military jeeps arrived, the unrest had not subsided, and troops deployed tear gas toward the Palestinian crowd. Levine, a photojournalist working for a prominent news outlet, sustained injuries during the incident. Speaking from a hospital bed, she told a broadcaster that a number of settlers had knocked her to the ground and kicked her repeatedly. Colleagues who were present intervened, after which she was transported first to a nearby clinic and subsequently to a hospital in Ramallah for further care.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that two people — a woman aged 63 and a man aged 40 — were transported to hospital following an assault in Abu Falah. One individual sustained a gunshot wound to the leg, according to Palestinian sources.
Cars and farm equipment belonging to Palestinian residents were reportedly torched and olive pickers physically attacked in the area around Turmus Ayya, a town lying northeast of Ramallah. The Palestinian news agency WAFA attributed responsibility for the episode to settlers. Among the items affected, according to reports, were olive trees and a vehicle used by Civil Defence volunteers.
According to witness Salah Abu Niswa, the attackers moved toward a group of farmers and struck one man after he became separated from the others. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society reported that a confrontation between olive harvesters and settlers in the Khallet Ali area, located near Burqa, left four members of the local Palestinian community with injuries.
Four agricultural workers from the Palestinian community sustained wounds when armed individuals attacked farmland in Asira al-Qibliya, a village lying to the south of Nablus. In a separate incident north of Ramallah, a 70-year-old Palestinian man was beaten and a number of parked vehicles were vandalised by Israeli settlers in the area between Birzeit and Burham.
Near the village of Deir Ballut, within the Salfit governorate, a group of settlers confronted local farmers and took a vehicle key from them. The individuals directed the farmers to vacate the land, warning that gunfire would follow any attempt to return. Farmland near al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya, a village lying south of Nablus, became the site of a reported confrontation when soldiers directed olive pickers to leave their plots and, according to WAFA, departed with the harvested fruit.
Mustafa Ghazi Zaraa, a young Palestinian man from Kafr Ni'ma in the area west of Ramallah, was taken into custody by Israeli forces, who are reported to have used physical force against him and members of his family while blocking their access to an olive harvest on their land.
Military and border police personnel were deployed to the vicinity of Khirbet Abu Falah on Friday following reports of a violent confrontation, the Israel Defense Forces stated. The IDF identified a reporter who sustained injuries during the event as a woman. The IDF's statement described crowd-control methods as what its personnel deployed to end the standoff. Troops at a separate site discharged initial rounds into the air before directing fire at an individual who, according to accounts, advanced toward them carrying an edged object and presenting a perceived threat. The IDF stated that a joint forensic and police review of the incidents would gather physical evidence and speak with witnesses. A pledge to cooperate with the appropriate authorities on such incidents accompanied a formal rejection of violence targeting civilians.
United Nations data gathered during the ongoing olive harvest put the number of incidents directed at Palestinian farmers above the full-season count recorded twelve months earlier. Data gathered by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs put harvest-linked incidents above 200, a figure Farhan Haq — serving as Deputy Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General — contrasted with the 185 tallied across the 2024 season. Haq's account put the toll at one Palestinian fatality and more than 120 people wounded, with property damage extending to more than 2,500 olive trees and young saplings. Roughly four in every five of those cases fell within the fortnight preceding his remarks.
In a separate development, the Palestinian Authority body that monitors settlement and barrier activity reported recording 136 harvest-related incidents from the start of October onward. Each dataset originates from a distinct reporting process, meaning their totals cannot be meaningfully combined into a single figure.
Documented obstacles — including physical altercations and land-use restrictions — have left Palestinian agricultural workers with reduced opportunities to tend their olive harvests. A news outlet documented limits on Palestinian farmers' ability to reach certain cultivated plots, notably those falling under Area C administration. The UN noted that humanitarian partners on the ground were distributing tools and supplies to growers, tracking movement constraints around orchards near settlements and on the far side of the separation barrier, and connecting affected farmers with legal support.
Around three million Palestinians and several hundred thousand Israeli settlers make up the population of the West Bank, a territory held under military occupation. Under international law as interpreted by the United Nations and most of the world's governments, housing developments that Israel has constructed across occupied Palestinian land fall outside legal boundaries — a position Israel does not accept.
