Israel: 13 foreign activists and a busy West Bank journalist

Tpray foreign activists and a journalist were expelled from Israel after being arrested in the occupied West Bank, announced today the Israeli authorities, accusing them of having participated in “public policy disturbances”.

“ During the weekend, 14 foreign citizens who were in Israel on a tourist visa were expelled from the country after being arrested by the security forces,” Israel’s Population and Immigration Authority, an agency linked to the Israeli Ministry of Interior, said in a statement.

“ The latter were expelled this morning,” a spokesman for the department told AFP news agency.

The Israeli police also announced that three Palestinians were arrested, in addition to 14 foreigners, from North America and Europe.

The foreigners were arrested on Friday in Ramallah district, while accompanying Palestinian farmers in the olive harvest, after a confrontation with Israeli settlers, according to the Human Rights Defenders Fund (HRDF), a human rights organization.

This year, the harvest has been marked by an increase in violence by Israeli settlers accused by several non-governmental organisations (NGOs) of trying to prevent Palestinians from accessing their olive groves.

Sharona Weiss, responsible for international defence at HRDF — an organisation that acted in the group’s defence — told AFP news agency that they were accompanying Palestinian farmers on their land “when settlers arrived and started attacking them”.

Among the people arrested were a journalist and a 77-year-old activist, according to Weiss.

According to the police, foreign citizens are suspected of trying to incite violence on the spot and feed “anti-Israelite media campaigns” and their expulsion aimed at “stop provocative activities of this type”.

The activists, from the United States, Canada, Italy and Germany, “violated legal provisions and participated in public policy disturbances,” the body said.

These expulsions occur in the context of growing international criticism of the violence committed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

Israeli NGO Yesh Din registered more than 850 acts of “violence” committed by settlers during the five weeks of olive harvesting. Last month, the settlers seriously injured Heidi Levine, American photographer of the Washington Post newspaper, while it covered the harvest.

According to HRDF, 15 other foreigners, including one journalist, had already been arrested and expelled a week earlier.