European diplomats and officials were attacked on Saturday amid a surge in settler pogroms across the occupied West Bank in recent weeks, coinciding with olive harvest season.
The settler pogroms have escalated just weeks before Israel heads to the polls on October 27.
The European Union (EU) on Sunday condemned settler attacks on European diplomats and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. A day earlier, a veteran American journalist working for the Washington Post was also brutally attacked.
But this is not the first time Israeli settlers have assaulted foreign officials or prominent Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli settlers assaulted European diplomats, including a French mayor, near the Palestinian village of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank.
The delegation was visiting Palestinian olive harvesters on Saturday when the Israeli attackers confronted the group.
In Saturday’s incident, the settlers targeted Belgium’s consul general, French and Polish diplomats, and Catholic representatives, Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Prevot said.
“A French mayor was assaulted and a Belgian vehicle damaged,” Prevot said, linking the incident to Israel’s “illegal settlement policy” and pledging to push for further EU sanctions.
Bernard Baudoux, the French mayor who was assaulted, told the AFP news agency the attack suggests that “there is a tolerance on the part of the Israeli government” towards settler violence.
Video shared by an activist at the scene, Amit Orfali, shows Baudoux leaning against a vehicle while sitting on the dusty ground. Other clips showed young masked men knocking insistently on a driver’s side window and asking for identification, while other masked men carrying sticks advanced in the distance. Orfali said the masked men “threatened to kill us”.
France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot called on Israel to arrest the “extremist settlers” who “violently assaulted” Baudoux, and bring them to justice. “They must urgently halt this criminal violence and guarantee the safety of civilian populations, as they are compelled to do under international law,” he said in a post on X.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has, however, appeared to question the reports of the attack on the Europeans, saying on X that they are “alleged” and require “compelling evidence”, despite acknowledging that published footage of the incident exists.
“We take positive note of statements by several Israeli representatives who condemned the attacks,” the EU said in a statement on Sunday. “But we expect full accountability as well as effective measures to prevent continued acts of violence and violent harassment against Palestinians, including during the ongoing olive harvest season, as well as against journalists.”
Palestinian farmers harvesting olives and veteran American journalist Heidi Levine, 64, who freelances for the Washington Post, were brutally attacked by settlers.
Levine fell to the ground during the assault before she was set upon, witnesses said. “We looked and saw that there was a journalist … on the ground with people surrounding her, beating her, clubbing her, robbing her, pulling her up, beating her again and kicking her,” Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who witnessed the attack, told Al Jazeera.
Levine later told reporters that her attackers “just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times”.
Levine was wearing a protective vest marked “PRESS” on the front and back. Her cameras and phone were taken from her during the assault, the Washington Post reported.
Nathaniel said he and others managed to reach her when the settlers briefly backed away, but she struggled to stand. “She was in very, very bad shape. She couldn’t really get up off the ground,” he said.
As they helped Levine towards paramedics, settlers charged again, throwing more stones, he added. The journalist was eventually taken to a hospital in Ramallah.
Nathaniel said Israeli soldiers arrived after the settler assault and opened fire and used tear gas against Palestinians, shooting a man in the leg. “They do nothing to stop the settlers, and they speed into town and start firing their guns and tear-gassing, and they shoot a Palestinian man in the leg,” he said.
“They’re pointing their guns at the paramedics who are helping him, shoving journalists, including myself,” Nathaniel said, adding that the injured man was eventually taken away in an ambulance.
Wafa, the Palestinian news agency, reported that Israeli forces fired live ammunition and tear gas at Palestinians during the attack. After the soldiers left, Palestinians returned to harvesting their olives, Nathaniel added.
Netanyahu’s office has said the facts around the settler attack “remain unclear”, as it offered a conditional condemnation.
“Serious questions remain”, said a post on the official X account of the prime minister’s office, calling for an investigation to “establish the facts, including who initiated the violence”.
Israeli settlers beat Palestinian AFP news agency photographer Jaafar Ashtiyeh, 58, with rifle butts near Aqraba, south of Nablus. He suffered bruises to his head and torso and was taken by ambulance to a hospital, according to witnesses, his family and fellow journalists cited by AFP.
AFP photographer John Wessels was with Ashtiyeh when the incident occurred.
The news agency reported that a quadbike had raced towards the journalists and a man had opened live fire.
“At least six other people then rushed towards the AFP journalists, firing guns,” AFP reported. “As Ashtiyeh attempted to enter a car, which was clearly marked ‘Press’, two men jumped on him and beat him repeatedly with the butts of their rifles. ‘I could hear his screams,’ said Wessels, who was also threatened at gunpoint.”
While Ashtiyeh is now conscious in a hospital in Nablus, the assailants have taken his camera equipment, according to his colleague Wessels.
The Israeli military has yet to respond to the AFP news agency.
United States Congressional Representative Ro Khanna said he and his tour group were detained by rifle-wielding Israeli settlers during a trip to Palestine.
In a post on X, Khanna had accused the Israeli army of supporting the settlers.
“When the [Israeli army] arrived, they sided with the settlers and continued our detention,” Khanna wrote.
Khanna, a Democrat who is considering running for US president in 2028, told the Reuters news agency that “hoodlums … with machine guns” had detained his group a day earlier. “They block off the road. And then they call the [Israeli military] and the [Israeli military] is on their side,” Khanna said.
He added that the settlers were armed with US-made assault rifles.
In an interview with DRM News, Khanna said his experience in the occupied West Bank and Israel was the “first time” he had “really been acutely aware of being brown”.
“I saw the arrogance in the eyes of those settlers. Twenty-one and 22-year-olds with guns, laughing that they had detained us. The arrogance of those young [Israeli army] soldiers that my tax dollars are funding. Having no respect for the fact that they were detaining Americans,” he added.
The Israeli military disputed Khanna’s version of the events, saying that it “dispersed” civilians who were blocking the road.
Israeli officials have, however, ruled out apologising to Khanna or holding the settlers accountable.
Three months after the incident, on Saturday, October 17, Khanna called Netanyahu a “liar” after his office released an October 16 statement on X saying that “serious questions remain” about “who initiated the violence” and other details of the attack on Washington Post journalist Heidi Levine.
“Netanyahu called me a liar when settlers detained me, along with a NYT photographer, in Zanuta this past July,” Khanna wrote. “Netanyahu, you are the liar with the blood of Palestinian children on your hands.”
One Canadian and three Italian activists were injured by illegal Israeli settlers in the Ein ad-Duyuk village in the Jericho governorate in the central West Bank, local sources told the Anadolu news agency.
Anadolu reported that settlers had stormed into a Bedouin community where the activists were residing and then assaulted them. Three activists sustained moderate injuries, while one was critically wounded, the news agency said and added that their passports, phones, and belongings were also taken.
Palestinian activist and English teacher Awdah Hathaleen , who contributed to the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was shot and killed on July 28, 2025, in the occupied West Bank village of Umm al-Khair in the Masafer Yatta region.
The beloved 31-year-old activist and father of three fell to the ground as people rushed over to try to help him. Then an ambulance came out of the nearby illegal settlement of Carmel and took him away.
Footage published by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem appears to show the suspect Yinon Levi opening fire on Hathaleen during a confrontation in the village.
Despite the visual evidence and prior sanctions imposed on Levi by both the EU and the United States over past attacks on Palestinians, Israeli authorities released him to house arrest.
US President Donald Trump also removed the penalties against Levi and other settlers accused of extremist violence after assuming office in January 2025.
Israeli settlers attacked a group of foreign volunteers helping Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank.
David Hummel, an American-German in the group, told the AFP news agency that eight mainly American volunteers were working with the farmers in an olive grove near the Palestinian village of Qusra when settlers attacked them.
“They started attacking and beating us all with sticks and metal pipes, and they were throwing rocks as well at us,” he said.
“I was attacked on my legs, on my arms and here on my jaw as well and it was … very violent,” he added.
The Israeli army condemned the violence and said its troops were deployed to the scene and had fired warning shots into the air, causing the Israeli settlers to flee the area.