On Saturday morning, 12 October 2024, on the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, about 150 residents of the village of al-Mughayir went to harvest olives in their lands located in two farming areas belonging to the village, after the village council told them the harvest had been approved by the Israeli military, which gave them only one day to harvest. Despite this, settlers and soldiers who arrived in the two areas threatened the harvesters, attacked them and drove them from their lands. More troops arrived later and allowed the harvest to continue, but only in one area. Below is a description of the events:
Around 8:30 A.M., about 10-15 settlers, some of them armed, arrived at the olive groves located northeast of the village, where about a hundred residents were harvesting. The settlers pushed the harvesters, threatened them at gunpoint and drove them about 20 meters away from the lands. The settlers then remained at the site and prevented the harvesters from returning to their lands. Soldiers who arrived about half an hour later also ordered the residents to leave their lands and they were forced to retreat all the way to Alon Route, about a hundred meters away. About half an hour after that, a police cruiser, soldiers and Border Police officers arrived and removed the settlers. The soldiers allowed village residents to get back to harvesting only after checking their ID cards. The residents continued harvesting until 4:00 P.M., when the time slot coordinated with the military ended, and then went home.
On the same day, at around 8:00-8:30 A.M., about 50 villagers went to harvest olives in their groves east of the village, next to the location where the al-Qabun community resided until it was forced to leave by settler violence, near the Allon Route (458). They first had to wait for about 20 minutes, until a soldier opened the locked gate the military had installed when the war started to block the road leading from the eastern entrance to the village to the Allon Route. When they finally managed to reach their land, they saw about four settlers grazing their sheep there. Two of them were armed. The harvesters also discovered some of the trees had been cut down and others were burnt, probably by settlers, while they themselves were not allowed to access their lands. About five minutes later, four more settlers and a soldier arrived in a vehicle. The soldier and some of the settlers began shooting in the air and on the ground in an attempt to drive away the harvesters, while the other settlers threw stones at them. The harvesters fled towards the gate, where soldiers were waiting for them while doing nothing. The soldiers remained in place until the last harvester left.