The Israel Defense Forces has suspended a deputy commander in its 334th Battalion and opened an investigation after troops shot dead a 59-year-old Palestinian woman who was picking olives near the security barrier in the Jenin area of the northern West Bank, the military said in a statement Friday.
A Palestinian Authority health ministry statement Thursday said Hanan Abdel Rahman Abu Salama “was killed by [Israeli] occupation bullets” in the village of Faqoua, near the northern West Bank city of Jenin.
According to witness testimonies collected by the village council, Abu Salama was killed while picking olives with her family.
“An investigation has been opened by the military police investigating the incident,” the IDF said in its statement. “The commander of the force at the time of the incident has been suspended from her position until the end of the investigations.”
Faqoua village councilor Munir Barakat told AFP that “an Israeli in military clothing arrived at the place in a white car and fired about 10 bullets at the Abu Salama family, who were picking olives on their land.
“A few days ago, the council published an invitation to the village residents to go to their agricultural lands to pick olives,” said Barakat.
He added that the shooting occurred near a wall erected by Israeli authorities in the area.
A security source told the Haaretz daily that an initial investigation had found that the area where Abu Salama was working does not require Palestinians to coordinate harvest activities with security forces although there is a recommendation to notify if they plan to approach close to the security fence that separates the West Bank from Israel.
Barakat told Haaretz that the Palestinian body that coordinates with Israel notified the council that harvesting could go ahead and that the activities had been approved. As a result, the council told locals they could work in orchards close to the security fence.
The councilman said that following the shooting, army officials arrived to take testimonies about the incident, but he cast doubt on whether any real action would be taken.
“To the family and everyone else, it is clear that doesn’t mean that someone will be served justice for the killing of an innocent woman, a mother and grandmother who was guilty only of going to harvest olives,” Barakat said.
In a statement issued earlier this week, the Israeli military said: “The IDF and the Civil Administration are working to allow the residents of the region to harvest olives on the land under their authority in security, and alongside this, are working [to take] all necessary steps aimed at protecting the security of Israeli citizens and settlements in parallel to the carrying out of the harvest.
Olive harvests are central to Palestinian life and culture but have also been the site of perennial clashes between farmers and Israeli settlers for decades, with the disputes hinging on access to land.
UN experts on Wednesday said that Palestinian farmers in the West Bank, which Israel has controlled since 1967, were facing “the most dangerous olive season ever.”
Violence has soared in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists stormed southern Israel from Gaza to kill nearly 1,200 people and take 251 hostages.
Since then, troops have arrested some 5,250 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 2,050 affiliated with Hamas, and carried more than 70 airstrikes across the territory using drones, attack helicopters and fighter jets.
According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority health ministry, more than 716 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank during that time. The IDF says the vast majority of them were gunmen killed in fire exchanges, rioters who clashed with troops, or terrorists carrying out attacks.
During the same period, 41 people, including Israeli security personnel, have been killed in terror attacks in Israel and the West Bank. Another six members of the security forces were killed in clashes with gunmen in the West Bank.