UN independent experts urge Israel to protect Palestinian olive farmers in the West Bank

Independent human rights experts appointed by the Human Rights Council urged Israel on Monday to guarantee the protection of Palestinian farmers and their safe access to their land during the olive harvest in the occupied West Bank. Seven experts signed the statement. The Council appoints them. They are not UN staff and receive no salary.

The experts said Palestinian farmers face rising violence, destruction and restrictions, year after year. “The olive harvest should be a time when farmers can enjoy, in safety and dignity, the food and livelihoods their nature and land provide, not another season of fear, loss, violence and destruction,” they said.

The experts gave figures for 2025. They said 178 settler attacks linked to the harvest were documented across the occupied West Bank, affecting 88 Palestinian towns and villages. They said this was the highest number of locations since 2020. They also said more than 6 thousand trees and seedlings were vandalised last year, nearly double the number recorded in 2024 and the highest in 6 years.

The experts raised concern about orders issued by the Israeli military authorities in September 2026. The orders call for clearing vegetation from about 339 thousand square metres (84 hectares) of Palestinian farmland in the north and centre of the West Bank. The land includes olive groves in Jenin, Qabatiya and Beit Rima. They also cited reports of olive groves uprooted by Israeli military bulldozers near Ramallah shortly before the harvest.

The experts said Israel should make sure its forces protect farmers from settler attacks and do not interfere with farmers reaching their land. They said Israel has an international legal obligation to end its occupation of Palestinian land, stop new settlement activity, evacuate settlers and provide full reparation. They also said: “The international community, especially States with power and influence, must exercise maximum pressure to protect Palestinian civilians”.

OCHA, the UN emergency aid coordination office, gave its own West Bank count for the past two weeks. It reported that Israeli forces or settlers killed five Palestinians and injured over 240. It said 160 olive harvest-related settler attacks caused casualties, property damage or both. It said record demolitions displaced 96 Palestinians.

In Gaza, Israeli attacks over the weekend killed at least six Palestinians, including children, according to UN News. This was despite a ceasefire agreement that is a year old. Local health authorities told OCHA that 57 Palestinians were reported killed and 319 injured between 29 September and 12 October. They put the total since the October 2025 ceasefire at 1,493 killed and 5,299 injured.

OCHA said around 950,000 displaced people live in sites at medium to high risk of flooding, including over 400,000 at high risk. It said available supplies offered partial help to only 18 per cent of the 294,250 families needing shelter support for the rainy season. It said daily cooked-meal production fell by 12 per cent to approximately 614,000 because of funding constraints.

The source items contain no response from the Israeli government to the experts' statement or to the OCHA figures. They do not say who carried out the Gaza strikes beyond attributing them to Israel.