Retired Israeli Air Force Intelligence Chief Detained After Confronting Settler Attack on Olive Pickers Near Duma

A 77-year-old retired brigadier general who once ran Israeli Air Force intelligence was detained by police on Monday after he intervened to stop a settler from attacking Palestinian women harvesting olives near the village of Duma, south of Nablus.

Yoel Feldshuh, who also served as chief executive of El Al from 1996 to 2000, had joined roughly fifteen retired senior Israeli officers and activists accompanying local Palestinians during the harvest. The group included other former generals and a military historian, according to a Hebrew-language account of the incident shared on social media by Israeli journalist Ben Caspit, who posted video of the arrest.

According to the eyewitness description, the confrontation began after the harvest had ended, when a woman carrying a sack of olives toward a waiting truck was suddenly attacked by a young settler. Members of the retired-officers' group moved to separate the two. Police arrived afterward and detained two of the activists, including Feldshuh.

Commanders for Israel's Security, the movement to which Feldshuh belongs, described the arrests as a reversal of who should have faced consequences.

"Members of the group stood up to defend and prevent the attack. Instead of arresting the rioters, the forces arrested Feldshuh and another activist," the movement said in a statement reported by Israeli media.

Israeli police offered a different account, saying two Israelis were detained on suspicion of assaulting a shepherd near Duma. That framing is disputed by the activists present. The Israeli group Looking the Occupation in the Eye said a settler had tried to attack two Palestinian women carrying olive sacks, then called police and soldiers himself after activists pushed him away.

Feldshuh was released after questioning on condition that he leave the area. Police also detained a 15-year-old from Jerusalem in connection with the incident and released him under restrictive conditions; it remains unclear whether he was the settler involved in the attack.

Commanders for Israel's Security describes its aim as building an agreement with Palestinians based on the 1967 lines toward a two-state outcome. Its members have joined other volunteers and journalists in accompanying Palestinian farmers this harvest season, a response to what rights monitors describe as a wave of settler assaults, crop theft, equipment destruction and tree damage across the West Bank in recent days.

The same day Feldshuh was detained, activists and journalists gathered near the settlement of Neve Daniel, south of Jerusalem, after settlers circulated a call to "Stop the Harvest" and block Palestinians from reaching their land.