As the olive picking season approached, Palestinians in the occupied West Bank encountered widespread violence and obstruction during early harvesting efforts. On October 3, settlers from an illegal outpost attacked a family of harvesters near Nablus, leaving one man critically injured and prompting ransacking of nearby homes. Similar incidents unfolded across numerous villages including Sebastia, Beit Imrin, and Aqraba, where harvesters were pepper-sprayed, struck with weapons, or run over by vehicles, with multiple people requiring hospital treatment.
Beyond physical assaults, settlers engaged in systematic theft, removing harvested olives and equipment from multiple locations. In some areas, livestock were driven through groves to destroy crops. Meanwhile, Israeli military forces barred Palestinians from accessing their own land in several communities, confiscating identification documents and tools. Two Palestinians were killed in separate incidents involving settlers and soldiers, and a third died in military custody at a checkpoint.
Electoral developments in Israel saw the Supreme Court reinstate Arab-majority political lists to the ballot after an election commission voted to ban them, with voting scheduled for October 27. The US Trump administration reportedly considered sanctions against Israeli military units over settler violence, though such actions were said to be pending until after Israel’s election. The UK confirmed suspending or rejecting more than 80 arms export licenses to Israel since 2024 while continuing F-35 component supplies.
In Gaza, Israeli strikes continued despite a year-old ceasefire agreement, with the Health Ministry documenting 1,460 deaths by October 5, raising the cumulative toll since October 2023 to 74,243. Civilian casualties included five people killed in a Gaza City strike and a six-year-old girl reported shot by troops. A Palestinian journalist became the 263rd reporter killed since the conflict’s start. Winter conditions loomed as humanitarian and medical systems deteriorated further across the territory.
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