Settlers Beat US Photojournalist Heidi Levine in West Bank, Huckabee Calls Attack 'Terror'

Heidi Levine was on the ground for more than ten minutes while masked men kicked her, she says, until her Palestinian colleagues pulled them off.

The 63-year-old Washington Post photojournalist, an award-winning correspondent who has covered the region for four decades, was attacked last Friday by Israeli settlers while photographing Palestinian farmers harvesting olives in the occupied West Bank. She is recovering in a hospital in Petah Tikva near Tel Aviv from hand surgery and broken ribs. Her camera, passport and phone were stolen, she said.

"I was attacked, pushed to the ground," Levine said. "Luckily, I had my flak jacket and helmet, otherwise I probably wouldn't even be here, because they just kept kicking and kicking me."

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, a hardline ally of President Trump not known for breaking with the Israeli government, posted a statement on X on Saturday calling the assault a "despicable act of terror" against a clearly identifiable American journalist.

"Attacking a female photographer is despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards. Dishonorable act of senseless violence."

Huckabee said he had called for "a full investigation, arrest, and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law to whoever participated."

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, took a different line, condemning "violence against anyone" but describing the attack as "alleged" and its circumstances as unclear. Levine told the Associated Press she was "shocked and insulted" by the characterization, saying Netanyahu "had all the evidence on the table." She said President Isaac Herzog called her personally, and that several former senior Israeli security and intelligence officials signed a letter expressing shame over the attack.

The assault on Levine was followed a day later by a separate settler attack on European officials visiting the Christian West Bank town of Taybeh for the same olive harvest. Bernard Baudoux, mayor of the French town of Aulnoye-Aymeries, was knocked to the ground while wearing his mayoral sash, as a masked man shouted "Vive la France!" according to a witness. His wife and the archbishop of Cambrai, Vincent Dollmann, were also threatened by a group of seven men, some carrying clubs. The French, Belgian and Polish consuls general were present.

"I think that if settlers are behaving like this, there is a tolerance on the part of the Israeli government," Baudoux told Agence France-Presse.

France's foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot called on Israel to "urgently halt criminal violence" and prosecute those responsible. The European Union issued a statement demanding "full accountability" and "effective measures to prevent continued acts of violence."

The back-to-back attacks came eleven days before Israel's 27 October elections, during a Palestinian olive harvest season that rights groups say has been repeatedly disrupted by settler violence as Netanyahu courts his pro-settlement base. Levine said she plans to return to work once she recovers. "They cracked my bones," she said, "they haven't cracked my spirit."