Israeli settlers attack European diplomats during West Bank olive harvest

Israeli settlers have attacked European diplomats, including a French mayor, near the Palestinian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank.

The delegation was visiting Palestinian olive harvesters on Saturday when the Israeli attackers confronted the group. The attack comes a day after settlers assaulted a US journalist north of Ramallah.

In Saturday’s incident, the settlers targeted Belgium’s consul general, French and Polish diplomats and Catholic representatives, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said.

“A French mayor was assaulted and a Belgian vehicle damaged,” Prevot said, linking the attack to what he called Israel’s “illegal settlement policy” and pledging to push for further European Union sanctions.

Bernard Baudoux, the French mayor who was assaulted, told the AFP news agency that the attack suggests that “there is a tolerance on the part of the Israeli government” towards settler violence.

France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, called on Israel to arrest the “extremist settlers” who “violently assaulted” Baudoux, and bring them to justice. “They must urgently halt this criminal violence and guarantee the safety of civilian populations, as they are compelled to do under international law,” he said in a post on X.

Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said the settlers had surrounded the diplomats’ vehicles, before pelting them with stones and smashing their windows.

The assault has prompted an Israeli police investigation and condemnation from Belgium as settler pogroms disrupt the harvest across the occupied territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, however, appeared to question the reports of the attack on the Europeans, saying on X that they are “alleged” and require “compelling evidence”, despite acknowledging that published footage of the incident exists.

Settler attacks continue

Earlier on Saturday, several Palestinians were injured by Israeli settlers, as Israeli forces arrested farmers during pogroms across the occupied West Bank.

Four women and a child were among six people injured when Israeli settlers attacked residents in Ma’in village in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS).

In the town of Deir Ammar, west of Ramallah, Israeli forces opened fire on farmers picking olives, forcing them to leave their land, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. In the same area, Israeli settlers shot and injured two Palestinians.

In the village of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem, Israeli forces fired on a Palestinian civilian vehicle.

In the village of Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah, settlers raided a farm at dawn and killed about 20 sheep, Mayor Najeh Rustum told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera’s Odeh said settlers also destroyed olive trees across the Beit Furik plain, east of Nablus, in the northern West Bank while Israeli forces arrested landowners and olive pickers.

In the village of Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah, she said, settlers under army protection fired live ammunition at farmers in the al-Hariq area to prevent them from completing the harvest and forced them off their land.

Settlers also smashed the vehicle of international activist Jonathan Budlak in the village and threw stones at a farmer’s vehicle.

In the village of Burqa near Ramallah, Israeli forces and settlers prevented farmers from picking olives, Odeh said, adding that settlers attacked farmers in the Wadi al-Sha’er area, southeast of Salfit.

“What we see, whether it’s in Beit Furik, Kafr Malek, Deir Jarir or elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, is part of a campaign,” Odeh said.

She said settlers have become increasingly emboldened, publicly advertising attack campaigns on social media platforms.

“There have been 300 documented attacks since the beginning of October, and that has had a devastating impact on a very important season for Palestinian farmers,” she said, adding that danger comes from soldiers and settlers alike as military forces routinely intervene to protect settlers and attack Palestinians defending their land.

Prominent rabbi justifies attacks

The attacks follow a religious edict issued by Rabbi Dov Lior, a prominent rabbi for National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s Jewish Power party and a leading authority among the Hilltop Youth, which is a religious Zionist group devoted to seizing Palestinian land in the West Bank.

In the edict, Lior stated that harvesting olives in the Holy Land is entirely permitted and carries an added virtue, given security dangers.

He wrote that Jews are permitted to harvest olives even in areas far from Jewish communities to publicly display ownership of the land and fulfil God’s commandment of conquering it. He claimed the land belongs to the Jewish people and Palestinians did not buy or rent it.