Israeli Occupation Settler Violence Intensifies During Palestinian Olive Harvest Season
Israeli Occupation Settler Violence Intensifies During Palestinian Olive Harvest Season
Israeli occupation settler violence has intensified across the occupied West Bank in 2025, with over 2,900 settler attacks recorded since the beginning of the year resulting in the killing of 33 Palestinians, according to local monitoring groups.
Israeli settlers have also seized approximately 1,900 dunums of Palestinian land so far this year, amid a growing campaign of land appropriation and forced displacement.
September alone witnessed 490 documented settler attacks, reflecting a sharp rise in aggression against Palestinian communities.
Just yesterday, on 19 October, settlers attacked Palestinian olive pickers in the town of Turmus Ayya near Ramallah, injuring two farmers and a foreign activist. The settlers also torched private vehicles, while Israeli occupation forces accompanying the attackers assisted in enforcing access restrictions and fired shots towards the farmers, preventing them from completing the harvest.
The escalation comes amid the ongoing annual olive harvest season in Palestine, a period often marked by heightened settler violence across the West Bank as part of a systematic state-led campaign, with Israeli settlers and Israeli armed forces blocking access to farmlands, assaulting olive pickers, destroying olive trees, and causing significant financial losses and harm to the Palestinian economy.