Rabbis for Human Rights

18/10/2026

On Friday, a prominent rabbi told Jews they may take Palestinian olives. Today, 170 rabbis went to the police.

Rabbi Dov Lior of Kiryat Arba, a settlement next to Hebron, published a ruling permitting Jews to enter Palestinian olive groves and harvest them. In effect, it declares Palestinian property ownerless. Today our acting CEO, Anton Goodman, filed a police complaint against him on behalf of our 170 rabbis for incitement to racism, incitement to violence, and solicitation of property theft.

“Reality obliges us to stand with the Torah,” Anton said. “Entering other people’s land and taking their harvest against the law is not what God wants from us in this land.”

The harvest is how Palestinian families keep their bond with land they refuse to leave. This ruling makes every grove more dangerous, but it won’t stop us from standing beside our Palestinian partners this harvest season.

18/10/2026

Twenty years ago, Ali Abu Diyeh in Kisan planted olive saplings so his family could gather in the grove every fall and harvest together. Today, he arrived to find nearly all of it gone, over 150 trees uprooted or cut down by settlers.

The grove stands about 100 meters from the families’ homes in Kisan, a Palestinian village east of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank. The families were still waiting for the Israeli Civil Administration, the military body that controls Palestinians’ access to their own land, to coordinate a safe date for the harvest. While they waited, settlers attacked.

Even in war, the Torah forbids cutting down fruit trees: “Are trees of the field human to withdraw before you?” (Deuteronomy 20:19). There was no war here. There was a family, a grove, and twenty years of work.

Israeli authorities must protect farmers, guarantee safe access to their land, and bring the attackers to justice. The families of Kisan deserve to harvest in safety.

18/10/2026

Im Ibrahim sang as she walked the groves her family has tended for generations, but she has been hesitant to visit amidst what she called “a year of martyrs.”

On Friday, together with our partners from Standing Together and Bnei Avraham, we brought over 80 volunteers to the olive groves of Seir near Bethlehem to harvest olives and grapes. It was the first day of the planned harvest.

No person should have to live in fear that the steps they walk on their land may be their last. Ibn Ibrahim and the Palestinian children who smiled, played, danced, and harvested in the fields have a right to dignity, freedom of movement, and to harvest in peace. While the state fails to secure those rights, we will stand alongside them in solidarity and speak out against this grave injustice.

16/10/2026

Im Ibrahim sings as she walks among the groves her family has tended for generations, but that she’s been hesitant to visit amidst what she called “a year of martyrs.”

No person should have to live in fear that the steps they walk on their land may be their last. Ibn Ibrahim and the Palestinian children who smiled, played and danced in the fields today have a right to dignity, freedom of movement, and to harvest in peace. While the state fails to secure those rights, we will stand alongside them in solidarity and speak out against these graves injustice.

15/10/2026

Last Friday, settlers carrying clubs told Palestinian farmers in Birzeit not to come back to their olive groves. This week, we came back with them.

The harvest wasn’t due to start until October 16. But after two weeks of documented olive theft from Palestinian fields, our Palestinian partners asked for emergency accompaniment in the groves most exposed to theft, beside Birzeit, a town just north of Ramallah in the West Bank.

When we arrived that first day, settlers with clubs were already threatening the landowners. We moved our volunteers to another plot and harvested until early afternoon. This week we returned to the very grove where settlers had tried to frighten us off, and together we picked more than a dozen trees heavy with ripe olives.

Only then did we learn whose land it was: the family of Sliman Mansour, the celebrated Palestinian painter, born in Birzeit, whose work kept returning to olive trees and the harvest. He died this August. At the end of the day, his son told us that settlers on the family’s land would have deeply disappointed his father, but that our choice to come back despite the intimidation would have given him great hope in humanity.

14/10/2026

Emergency harvest day two: we came back to Birzeit where settlers tried to intimidate us with clubs but we were not deterred. Over 20 volunteers came from all over Israel to help Palestinian farmers harvest the trees they have tended for generations and ensure settler terrorists will not rob them of their economic and cultural inheritance.

Follow Rabbis for Human Rights for updates throughout the harvest season.

12/10/2026

This five second clip perfectly illustrates what is happening in the West Bank right now.

On Friday, our Palestinian partners called for an emergency harvest in the groves beside Birzeit, near Ramallah, where olives are stolen off the trees in broad daylight and with the army’s protection.

We arrived to find settlers threatening the landowners with clubs. Minutes later, the army came. The settler called the commander by his first name and ordered him to arrest the farmer on the basis that he had tried to stab him. It never happened. We were there.

Then they shook hands, and the commander detained our Palestinian partner.

The Torah warns against this exact gesture:
“Do not join hands with the guilty to act as a malicious witness.” (Exodus 23:1)

This was not one bad afternoon. Before the harvest even officially began, Yesh Din documented 109 incidents of violence and harassment against harvesters in 75 towns.
Soldiers appear on camera in 28 of them.

Follow Rabbis for Human Rights for live updates from the olive groves and ways to get involved.

11/10/2026

Palestinian families in villages around Bethlehem, including Jannata, east of the city, are living with repeated settler attacks. They are still there, still farming their land, still raising their kids at home.

Today we met with the deputy governor of Bethlehem, together with friends from Standing Together and Bnei Avraham, to talk about how protective presence in the area can keep supporting them. Some of the volunteers at the table were among those hurt in the recent attack in Jannata. The deputy governor thanked everyone for the work and said he hopes we keep working together.

Rabbi Tarfon taught that we aren’t required to finish the work, but we aren’t free to walk away from it either (Pirkei Avot 2:16). For as long as families near Bethlehem choose to stay, we’ll keep showing up beside them.

11/10/2026

Fahima warmly welcomed us with bunches of nana (mint) grown on the land her family has stewarded for five generations.

Since Oct. 7th, 2023, her family has been restricted from accessing their olive trees and grape vines in the valley between their home and the settlement of Beitar Illit.

In the past 10 months settlers established a new outpost on the hillside only a few hundred meters above their home and harass them constantly.

11/10/2026

Dahlia Scheindlin counts RHR as part of the few in Israeli civil society stepping in as our elected officials fail us all.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2026-10-09/ty-article-magazine/.premium/from-the-hostages-to-protective-presence-israelis-know-its-on-them/000001a1-1b90-da49-a5e9-1bb8a1380000
(paywall)

From memorials to protective presence and saving their own lives: With a government that only prioritizes its own political survival, Israeli civil society has prevailed where its elected leaders have failed