Italian foreign ministry officials say Israeli forces stopped another group of international volunteers in the West Bank on Thursday, including four Italian women, and that Rome has asked Israel for urgent clarifications.
The women were stopped in the village of al-Bweib, south of Hebron, while volunteers were supporting Palestinian olive pickers. The ministry said the Italian embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulate general in Jerusalem contacted Israeli authorities as soon as they were informed, asking about the circumstances of the stop and the women's situation. It later received confirmation that the four Italian citizens are at a police station.
A day earlier, a large Israeli military operation blocked and detained about 90 volunteers. Among them was Brad Lander, a Democratic candidate for the United States Congress, who was later released with dozens of other activists under severe movement restrictions. In the same hours, Manuel and Alberto Tartarotti, a father and son from Bolzano aged 35 and 67, were held and then formally expelled. They had travelled to the West Bank to deliver humanitarian funds and support the harvest. After several hours in Israeli police custody they were removed from the country and barred from returning to Israel for the next ten years.
The olive harvest in the West Bank is described as a crucial period with a very high risk of incidents. In recent weeks there has been a surge in attacks by groups of extremist settlers, including, last weekend, the wounding of a Wall Street Journal photojournalist and an assault on some European diplomatic cars.