Heidi Levine was covering an olive harvest in the Palestinian village of Abu Falah on Friday when masked Israeli settlers attacked her. The Washington Post photojournalist wore a flak jacket marked ‘PRESS’ on its front and back, yet a group knocked her down, repeatedly kicked her and took her cameras and phone.
Levine suffered four broken vertebrae, a broken rib and lacerations across her body. A finger that was ripped open required surgery.
A BBC team witnessed the attack. It reported that a local official said 12 Palestinians were also injured, including four dual Palestinian-American citizens.
The following day, masked settlers armed with sticks and iron bars attacked European diplomats and Palestinians harvesting olives outside Taybeh. The visitors included diplomats from Belgium, France, Poland and the Catholic Church.
Bernard Baudoux, a French mayor, was assaulted, while a window on a car belonging to Belgium’s consulate was smashed, according to the Belgian foreign minister, Maxime Prevot. “Impunity for violent settlers must end,” Prevot said.
Israeli police have since arrested 10 unnamed suspects across several West Bank locations after the attacks on Levine and the diplomats. The operation, called “Olive Leaf”, involved the Shin Bet, border police and the Israeli military.
Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, called the assault on Levine a “despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards” and said those responsible should spend years in prison. He welcomed the arrests on X as “A very positive development in finding & punishing those who severely attacked and beat Heidi Levine”.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog told Levine that the “despicable behaviour of the perpetrators of this attack does not represent the citizens or the values of the State of Israel.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office described the attacks as “alleged” and said they occurred amid a “co-ordinated campaign to smear Israel” and West Bank settlers. Levine told AP on Sunday that she was “shocked and insulted” by the prime minister’s questioning of the account.
A court extended the detention of six of the arrested men to between three and four days.
The attacks came during a Palestinian olive harvest that began in late September. Yesh Din said on Sunday that it had recorded 269 incidents of violence directly tied to the harvest over the previous 20 days, including 98 cases of violence and physical assaults against harvesters.
The group said the incidents also included crop thefts and olive trees being damaged or burned. It documented more than 530 incidents of settler violence since the start of the harvest, an average of 27 violent incidents each day, and said Israeli soldiers were present at roughly one quarter of the attacks.
Yesh Din said more than 93% of Israeli police investigations into ideologically-motivated offences by Israelis against Palestinians in the West Bank ended without an indictment between 2005 and 2025.
Israel has built about 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jews since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East war. An estimated 3.3 million Palestinians live alongside the settlements.
At least 96 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces or settlers in the West Bank since the start of the year, according to UN figures.
On Saturday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration had told Israel that the US “doesn't want to see a new spark” in the West Bank.
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