American and European officials have condemned a spate of violence in the West Bank, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel sought to cast doubt on the attacks.
Israeli extremist attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have escalated in recent weeks amid the annual olive harvest. On Friday, masked assailants were filmed beating Heidi Levine, an American photographer for the Washington Post covering the harvest outside of Ramallah.
Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state, said on Saturday that the Trump administration was “very disturbed” by the footage and was seeking more information about the attacks. He said Washington had “asked the Israelis and continue to ask them to crack down on that stuff.”
Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, said on Saturday night on social media that the attack on Ms. Levine was “a despicable act of terror,” and called on the authorities to prosecute those responsible to the fullest extent of the law.
Earlier on Saturday, masked men had attacked Palestinians and a European diplomatic convoy in the Christian town of Taybeh, where they had been participating in the olive harvest. Bernard Baudoux, a visiting French mayor, was also attacked, according to the French foreign ministry.
The European Union denounced the violence and, in a statement on Sunday, the French foreign ministry called on Israel to take measures to stop “these acts of terror.”
In public statements over the weekend, Mr. Netanyahu allowed that there was a “scourge of violence” but said what happened in the attacks was still unclear, despite video footage of them. His office also said they may be part of “a coordinated campaign to smear Israel.”
The attacks come at a sensitive moment for Israel’s government. The country will hold elections later this month that are widely seen as a referendum on Mr. Netanyahu’s leadership.
His opponents say they will rein in Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians. Gadi Eisenkot, Mr. Netanyahu’s leading opponent in next week’s vote, said the current government was allowing “Jewish terrorism” to rage in the West Bank.
Since late September, when the harvest began, more than 80 violent episodes involving Israeli soldiers and settlers have been reported, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. The assaults are the latest in a surge of violence over the past few years that has driven out entire Palestinian communities in the West Bank.
Ms. Levine was covering the olive harvest when her assailants knocked her down and beat her with sticks, breaking her rib, lacerating her legs and hip, and giving her a serious cut on her left hand, her family said.
As criticism mounted this weekend, Mr. Netanyahu sought to downplay the events, saying more needed to be learned. In a television interview that aired on Saturday night, the prime minister said he did not support “vigilantism,” but cast doubt on whether the attack on Ms. Levine took place as described.
“This is being looked into — many times now, it’s been said that something happened, but it turned out that it didn’t,” Mr. Netanyahu told the i24 news broadcaster.
When the interviewer pressed him about videos that showed Ms. Levine on the ground, surrounded by her masked assailants, Mr. Netanyahu demurred. “I don’t know, we’re checking that,” he said, adding that he was not willing to accept such violence.
In an interview with Israel’s Channel 12, Ms. Levine called Mr. Netanyahu’s account of the attack “such a lie and the biggest insult.”
The Israeli prime minister currently faces a tight election battle on Oct. 27, with opinion polls suggesting that his allies and opponents are nearly tied. That leaves the prime minister fighting to shore up support among his right-wing base.
Many of Mr. Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition partners, including the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, have not publicly denounced the attacks over the weekend. A spokesman for Mr. Ben-Gvir did not immediately comment.
President Trump encouraged Israelis to vote for Mr. Netanyahu on Sunday in a post on social media, saying that “the wrong Leader” would be “anyone other than Bibi,” referring to Mr. Netanyahu by his nickname.
Isaac Herzog, the Israeli president, said on Saturday night that he had spoken with Ms. Levine to condemn the assault, which he said had “weighed heavily on my conscience.” Mr. Herzog holds a largely ceremonial role as Israel’s official head of state without any political authority.
“The despicable behavior of the perpetrators of this attack does not represent the citizens or the values of the State of Israel,” Mr. Herzog said in a statement.
More than 100 retired Israeli diplomats, including former ambassadors, signed an open letter on Saturday in which they condemned the attacks as a “moral stain that will not easily be erased.” They also argued that it was causing “unacceptable damage to Israel’s foreign relations.”
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