Thursday, November 6, 2025: The head of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, Minister Muayyad Shaaban, stated that the Israeli occupation army and settlers have carried out a total of 340 attacks against Palestinian olive pickers since the start of the olive harvest in the first week of October up to this moment.
Shaaban explained that the Commission’s field teams documented 62 attacks by the occupation army and 278 attacks by settlers. These attacks ranged from violent physical assaults, arrests, movement restrictions, denial of access, and intimidation, to direct gunfire, as occurred in Tubas Governorate.
The majority of the assaults were concentrated in Ramallah Governorate (107 incidents), followed by Nablus (94) and Hebron (38). Shaaban added that the current season recorded 92 cases of movement restriction and intimidation of olive pickers, in addition to 59 incidents of beating and assault against farmers.
Shaaban emphasized that this season—coinciding with the ongoing aggression against the Palestinian people—has been the most difficult and dangerous in decades, as the occupation army and settlers exploited the conditions of war to commit their crimes, supported by policies and legislation that reinforce violence and impunity, such as the closure of governorates, arming settler militias, and, most dangerously, exempting them from accountability and prosecution.
He noted that 125 attacks targeted olive groves, including 170 incidents of tree cutting, uprooting, and land bulldozing, resulting in damage to approximately 1,200 olive trees.
Shaaban pointed out that statistical data reveal a consistent upward trend in the number of documented assaults over the past seasons, reflecting an increasingly systematic campaign of settler terrorism against the Palestinian olive harvest. The attacks rose from 136 incidents in 2022, to 333 in 2023, 407 in 2024, and 340 so far in the current season, clearly demonstrating the escalating scale of aggression faced by Palestinian farmers.
Finally, Shaaban called on the international community to move beyond rhetoric and take practical action to protect the Palestinian people and their national resources from what he described as a crime of state-sponsored terrorism and the official patronage of settler militias.