ABU FALAH, West Bank — Dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villagers trying to gather their autumn olive harvest on Friday, setting groves on fire and slinging rocks in a coordinated assault that fits a pattern of accelerating settler violence across the occupied West Bank.
Also caught up in the attack was Heidi Levine, a veteran photographer for The Washington Post. Levine, wearing a protective vest clearly marked “PRESS” on front and back, was knocked to the ground, kicked repeatedly and stripped of her cameras and phone.
She was taken to a hospital in the Ramallah area.
Witnesses described a mass-coordinated attack in which dozens of men in black came down from a hilltop settlement near the village of Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, where Palestinian families were picking their olives. Video of the incident corroborated the witness accounts.
The settlers hurled stones with slings and set the groves on fire, chasing a group of journalists about 80 yards from the scene.
Levine described being overtaken by a group of attackers, hit and knocked to the ground. A video taken by another journalist showed her being struck repeatedly while she was on the ground.
“They just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times,” Levine told reporters.
Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, a blogger who filmed the assault, said the settlers beat Levine with sticks while the journalists and villagers were forced to retreat.
When village youths pushed the settlers back, an American journalist, Jasper Nathaniel, reached Levine, and he and others helped her to safety.
After Palestinian medics took Levine away, the attackers charged again and hit several journalists with rocks.
Israeli troops arrived shortly before the attack, which seemed to embolden the settlers, Khrzhanovskiy said.
Soldiers fired tear gas at Palestinians and “did absolutely nothing about the settlers,” Khrzhanovskiy said.
The Israeli military is investigating the attack, said Lt. Col. Ariella Mazor, chief international spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces.
Troops in the area were trying to disperse a large and violent crowd and did not see the assault on Levine, she said, citing an initial review. She said the IDF is still examining details of soldier activity in the area.
“There was a big chaos there, a lot of people,” Mazor said. Israeli police are conducting a separate investigation, she said.
Mazor said the military recognized the scale of settler violence and has sent additional battalions to the West Bank to contain it.
“Any violence against innocent people does not reflect our values,” she said. If soldiers failed to act or behaved improperly, she added, “we will take care of that.”
Oren Ziv, a journalist who also witnessed the attack, said one Palestinian was wounded by gunfire.
Matt Murray, executive editor of The Post, issued a statement calling for an investigation.
“This morning, a Washington Post photographer, Heidi Levine, was attacked by Israeli settlers while reporting in the West Bank,” Murray said. “She was wearing visible markings clearly identifying her as a journalist. While we are relieved that Heidi has received medical care and is safe, we are outraged by this unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job and urge a thorough investigation and follow-through from authorities.”
Levine has photographed conflicts across the Middle East and in Ukraine for decades.
The attack came 10 days after settlers beat Agence France-Presse photographer Jaafar Ashtiyeh with rifle butts in the northern West Bank village of Aqraba.
Between January and August, the United Nations documented more than 1,600 settler attacks causing injury or property damage. At least 76 Palestinians in the West Bank have been shot dead by Israeli forces or settlers since Feb. 28, according to the United Nations.
Prosecutions are rare. In August, Israel indicted a settler in the killing of a Palestinian activist. The rights group Yesh Din said it was the first such charge against an Israeli civilian since 2019.
The Binyamin Regional Council, an umbrella group for Jewish settlements in the area, blamed the violence on the Palestinian Authority, which it said organized “hundreds of anarchists” to confront Israelis near the settlement of Meshulash.
The group alleged that these provocateurs had come to the area to “instigate confrontations under the guise of the olive harvest, as part of the ‘settler violence’ campaign.”
Journalists who were at the scene, however, said the clash unfolded when men from the Israeli settlement attacked Palestinians in a coordinated assault.
Violence against local residents has surged in recent years. The autumn olive harvest, traditionally a family ritual in the West Bank and a vital source of income for many Palestinians, in particular has become a season of attacks.
Levine was with a group of journalists who gathered near groves outside Abu Falah around 8:30 a.m. Friday, the day families typically pick the fruit.
The likelihood of violence was high, said Khrzhanovskiy, a Russian-born Israeli activist and video journalist known for documenting settler attacks as “Andrey X.” Men from the nearby Jewish settlement of Meshulash had repeatedly harassed the village, he said.
Trouble was already brewing by the time the journalists arrived. Settlers had burned cars in the neighboring village of Turmus Ayya. In Abu Falah, families hurried to strip the branches. On the hilltop above, they could see masked men gathering.
Jasper Nathaniel, an American journalist who has reported on multiple settler attacks, said Friday’s was clearly on a larger, more organized scale than usual.
“In this case, we could see them preparing for an attack, dozens of them all at once,” Nathaniel said.
About half an hour later, the men started down. A group of more than 50 stopped partway down the slope, set fire to the groves in several places and began to sling stones at the pickers, witnesses said. Young men from the village threw stones back, Khrzhanovskiy said.
Israeli military jeeps passed through but did not attempt to control the masked men, said Ziv, an independent Israeli journalist. “This actually gave confidence to the settlers to attack,” he said.
The men rushed on to the plain, setting more trees ablaze and hurling rocks. Tear gas filled the area and Nathaniel saw two attackers in the back of a pickup with automatic weapons. Gunfire erupted and the villagers and journalists scattered.
Levine stumbled and fell behind. “I was attacked, pushed to the ground,” she said.
From down the road, the journalists watched settlers beat her with sticks. Young men from the village pushed the settlers back with a barrage of stones, allowing Khrzhanovskiy and Nathaniel to run to Levine and guide her toward the village. The masked men rushed back, pelting them with stones as they ran.
More soldiers arrived. They parked beside the settlers, who were still masked, and holding sticks and slings. The soldiers fired tear gas at the Palestinians, not the settlers, multiple witnesses said.
“The army did nothing to stop the settlers,” Ziv said.
Hendrix reported from London.
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