On Wednesday, 5 November 2025, farmers from the town of Ya’bad went to their land in the Imreihah area of Jenin District to harvest olives in their groves east of the town, after the Israeli DCO gave them only one day to harvest. The outpost of Maoz Zvi stands west of this land.
The landowners, who live in the nearby town of Ya’bad, had to go through Dotan Checkpoint, installed by the military south of the town, where now Palestinians wishing to cross in the morning, are permitted to do so only between 8:00 A.M. and 10:00 A.M.
The soldiers drew out the vehicle inspections at the checkpoint that morning and closed it before everyone waiting could get through, including farmers who, as a result, missed the only harvesting day allotted to them on their land.
Samir Abu Baker, 60, was one of these farmers. He tried to access his land about a month earlier, on 16 October 2025, but a security guard from one of the settlements in the area and some soldiers detained him and his son and held them at Dotan Checkpoint for about six hours without questioning them, and then released the two.
On 19 October 2025, soldiers approached Abu Baker while he was harvesting a plot nearer Ya’bad to the south, which can be accessed without going through the checkpoint. They forced him out and did not allow him to take the olives he had harvested with him.
Samir Abu Bakr, 60, a father of eight from Ya’bad, gave the following testimony to B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi on 16 November 2025:
I have 37 dunam (1 dunam = 0.1 hectares) of olive groves south of Ya’bad, in the lands of the village of Imreihah. Southeast of my land, an outpost was established near the settlement Mevo Dotan. This year, during the olive harvest season, the Palestinian DCO informed us that the Israeli DCO had given us only one day to harvest our land, 5 November 2025, and only on condition that the farmers and landowners go to their land via Dotan Checkpoint, which is south of the town of Ya’bad.
At around eight o’clock in the morning, my brothers and sisters and I set out in our car toward Dotan Checkpoint, which the Israeli military opens every day only between 8:00 A.M. and 10:00 A.M. We waited in the line of cars traveling toward Imreihah or Barta’ah Crossing until 9:30 A.M.. There were about 15 vehicles ahead of us. The soldiers stopped every car and inspected it and the passengers’ ID cards very slowly, and each inspection took between 15 and 25 minutes.
By then, we gave up because every car inspection took a very long time and there were still many cars ahead of us. I knew they would close the checkpoint at 10:00 A.M., and we wouldn’t get through by then. So, we didn’t manage to get to our land that day. I later found out that they did turn away all the cars that were waiting to cross the checkpoint at 10:00 A.M.
We have another olive grove right by the main road south of the town of Ya’bad, which leads to Dotan Checkpoint. On 17 October 2025, I went out with my brothers and sisters to that plot, and we drove through the groves south of Ya’bad. We reached our land and managed to harvest olives for about an hour, until the security coordinator of the settlement of Dotan, whom I know, arrived with 15 soldiers. They forced us out of the land and didn’t let us take the olives we had harvested or the ladders. When I objected and said that we were working our own land and that there is no requirement to coordinate or obtain a permit from the Israeli authorities in this area, the soldiers detained my son, Alam, 21, and me. They tied our hands, blindfolded us and marched us for about two kilometers to Dotan Checkpoint. They held us there for six and a half hours without any interrogation or questions from the soldiers, and then let us go.
The same thing happened again on Sunday, 19 October 2025. That day, I again went out with my siblings and other family members to our land by the main road south of Ya’bad. After we arrived and harvested for an hour, three Israeli soldiers showed up, forced us out at gunpoint, forbade us from taking the olives we had harvested or our work tools, and we had to go home feeling angry and deeply wronged.