Israel denies entry to US rabbi Alissa Wise, who was travelling to help Palestinians harvest olives

Israeli border guards refused to admit the American rabbi Alissa Wise at the airport and put her on a plane back to the United States. Wise had been leading a delegation of rabbis who were travelling to the West Bank of the Jordan River to help Palestinians gather the olive harvest.

Every autumn, Palestinian families pick olives from trees that have belonged to them from generation to generation. The harvest is an important source of income and part of a cultural tradition, yet in recent years the picking season has been accompanied by clashes with Israeli settlers. The Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din and the Palestinian Farmers' Union have called the 2026 season the most violent in all the years of monitoring. Israel increasingly refuses entry to foreign activists who come to help Palestinian farmers, or expels them.

Wise herself wrote the following day that the Israeli authorities had denied her entry on grounds of public security and public order. According to her, the authorities were punishing her for speaking out in support of Palestinians, and four border guards sang "Am Yisrael Chai (The People of Israel Live)" during her deportation. Wise reported that the delegation was continuing its work without her: 14 rabbis and rabbinical students from the USA, Canada and the Netherlands are helping Palestinian farmers and following the guidance of local communities.

A few days earlier, on 21 October, the Israeli army had detained about 80 volunteers who were helping Palestinians pick olives. Among those detained were Rabbi Jill Jacobs, head of the American organisation Rabbis for Human Rights, and 11 more American rabbis connected with the organisation. The volunteers were taking part in the coalition programme "Protect the Harvest". The Israeli army stated that harvesting in that area required prior notification to the security forces, while the Israeli government rejects the accusations of ethnic cleansing made by the affected organisation

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New York's Nathalie Karg Gallery shows Friedel Dzubas's black paintings

Three fake Modigliani heads found in the Livorno canal in 1984

Carney convenes provincial premiers and First Nations leaders in Ottawa; Alberta and Quebec decline

Ed Buryn's Book “Vagabonding in Europe and North Africa”, Revised Edition