British MPs and International Delegates Barred from Entering West Bank During Olive Harvest

For nine hours, a group of 23 people from across Europe and the United States was held at the Allenby/King Hussein Bridge, the crossing between Jordan and the West Bank. They had come to meet Palestinian children, farmers and civic leaders during the olive harvest. By the end of the wait, they had been refused entry.

The delegation was drawn from countries including France, Spain, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Greece, Holland, Ireland and the US. Four of its members were elected representatives: the Labour MP Clive Lewis, the Scottish National party MP Lara Bird, the Scottish Greens MSP Kate Nevens, and the former Labour MP Sam Tarry. They were travelling to take part in Progressive International's Second Ramallah Congress, a gathering opposed to Israeli occupation in Palestine. The congress was organised with Birzeit University and includes meetings with Palestinian academics, students and civil society organisations.

Lewis described what happened at the crossing in blunt terms. He told the Guardian that the group was detained, taken aside and interrogated, and said he chose that word because people were shouted at. They were asked why they were going in, what was happening, and why their accounts differed one way or another. "The bottom line," he said, was that it was a deeply unpleasant experience.

Tarry said he had thought the delegation had a real chance of getting across. He read the outcome as deliberate: in his words, a clear political decision by Israeli authorities who did not want people to witness events in the West Bank, particularly ahead of the elections. That is his interpretation. No reason for the refusal was given to the group, according to Bird.

Bird said she had come to stand alongside Palestinians attacked for harvesting olives on their own land, and was instead turned away. She asked why, if Israel has nothing to hide, it is so determined to stop people seeing what is happening in the occupied West Bank. Laila Hazaineh, a political coordinator for Progressive International, said the delegation had remained determined to cross despite escalating violence, and that every refusal of entry would only strengthen that determination.

The exclusions come amid a period of reported violence around the harvest. International travel to parts of the West Bank is permitted but subject to military checkpoints. Earlier this month, Israeli media reported that the defence minister, Israel Katz, had instructed officials to pursue exclusion orders against activists travelling to Palestinian olive-harvesting areas. In the first two weeks of October, the UN aid coordination office recorded at least 160 Israeli settler attacks linked to the harvest, often carried out under the protection of Israeli forces or with their participation.

Foreign visitors have also been targeted. Israeli forces attacked European diplomats and a French mayor who were accompanying Palestinian farmers. About 80 olive-harvest volunteers, among them the US congressional candidate Brad Lander, were also recently detained.

The embassy of Israel has been contacted for comment and had not responded at the time of publication. What to watch is whether the reported exclusion orders produce more refusals like this one, and whether Israeli officials explain the decision at the bridge.