Two US Jewish women banned from Israel for helping Palestinian farmers with olive harvest

Two Jewish-American women have been banned from Israel for 10 years after helping Palestinian farmers with their olive harvest, Israeli media said on Sunday.

Israeli authorities detained the women on Wednesday after accusing them of "entering a closed military zone" located in the occupied West Bank village of Burin, imposed by the Israeli army since 29 October. The women were the held at the Givon Prison in Ramleh, before being deported on Friday.

The two women, one aged 18 and the other in her fifties, were helping Palestinian olive growers as part of a project run by the Rabbis for Human Rights, The Times of Israel said, in an act of solidarity with Palestinian farmers who have been subject to increased attacks and abuse by settles during the olive harvesting season.

Following a hearing on Thursday, the Israeli Population and Immigration Authority cancelled their visas and issued an order barring them from entering Israeli territory - as well as the occupied West Bank - for at least a decade, their lawyer confirmed.

The US women may appeal the order with the Ministry of Justice.

Becca Strober, an activist from the Solidarity of Nations organisation, condemned their arrest and subsequent deportation, saying that the Israeli military should focus on arresting settlers who commit violence rather than activists.

During the incident on 29 October, the two women were detained alongside nine others as they assisted Palestinian farmers in Burin with olive harvesting, The incident marked the second of its kind in recent weeks.

Previously, 32 activists were issued deportation orders after defending Palestinian olive farmers from Israeli settler abuse.

They were accused of "violating a military order" by entering the West Bank "illegally" and of belonging to the Union of Agricultural Work Committee, a Palestinian agricultural development NGO.

This comes amid a sharp rise in settler violence against Palestinian olive farmers, amid the ongoing harvest season which began in the middle of October.

Israeli settlers have physically and verbally attacked Palestinian farmers engaging in work and have set fire to olive groves, uprooted trees and deliberately set animals to graze on Palestinian farmland.

In one particularly brutal incident last month, an elderly Palestinian woman was clubbed on the head by a settler as she tried to pick olives.

At least 158 attacks on Palestinian farmers have been recorded this season, according to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission.