Israeli settlers use drone to attack Palestinian harvesters, Jewish activists in West Bank

Drone attacking Jewish activists in the northern West Bank, 4 November 2025

Matan Golan reports in Haaretz on 4 November 2025:

Israeli settlers on Tuesday used a drone to attack Palestinian olive harvesters and Jewish activists in the northern West Bank.

The settlers, members of a security squad from the neighboring Israeli settlement of Revava, initially harassed the olive harvesters by flying the drone at the height of their heads for an extended period.  The drone then struck the arm of one of the Israeli activists, lightly wounding her, and subsequently crashed to the ground. Armed security squad members then arrived at the scene, took the drone that had been used in the attack, and fired into the air to drive them away.

Later, Israeli soldiers and the Revava settlement security coordinator arrived. Initially, the IDF officer on the scene claimed he had received a report stating that the activists had beaten the members of the security squad with clubs. However, a Haaretz reporter present on the scene saw no such incidents.

Subsequently, the Israeli activists showed footage of the assault to Israeli army personnel and the security coordinator. The coordinator apologized to the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, Avi Dabush, who was present at the scene.  Dabush said of the incident that it was a “dangerous and low misuse of weapons and an IDF uniform,” adding that the assault could have “easily ended” with people being killed or wounded.

“The army is abetting armed militias and Jewish terrorism on the ground, either by standing by and sometimes actively,” he said. “We must stop this dangerous snowball now. We need the Israeli society to come to its senses, wake up and be with us in this struggle.”

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, the executive director of T’ruah – a rabbinical association of human rights activists – who also participated in the harvest, said that the violence experienced by Jewish activists was “just a small taste of what Palestinians experience on a daily basis.”

She added, “It was important for us to be there as American rabbis who care about this place, in partnership with Israeli rabbis, to help a family harvest their olives, and to share with our communities the stories of both the Palestinians experiencing violence and the many Israelis who are standing with them and working toward a better future for everyone here.”

This article is reproduced in its entirety