American journalist, Palestinians injured in clashes with masked Israeli settlers in West Bank

Several Palestinians and an American photojournalist working for the Washington Post were injured after a group of masked Israeli men clashed with Palestinians harvesting olives in the West Bank, according to videos, eye-witnesses and Palestinian authorities.

Video of the incident obtained by CBS News showed a group of around 20 masked men clad in black or grey clothes descending a hill from the area of an Israeli settlement outpost into an olive grove near the Palestinian village of Abu Falah.

Another video from the incident showed two vehicles set on fire and a Palestinian man with a bloodied face being escorted away from the area by a woman and a man.

Among the injured was Heidi Levine, a veteran American photojournalist working with the Washington Post.

Video shared by the Foreign Press Association showed Levine was surrounded by masked men, pushed to the ground and beaten, and her camera equipment taken from her.

While Levine was on the ground, the masked men launched stones with their arms and slingshots at Palestinians and the Palestinians threw stones at the masked men, the video showed

Levine was taken to a hospital in Ramallah for medical treatment.

Footage of Levine in her hospital bed showed she had a large wound on one of her legs and one of her hands had been bandaged.

“I was attacked, pushed to the ground. Luckily I had my flak jacket and helmet, otherwise I probably wouldn’t even be here, because they just kept kicking and kicking me,” Levine said from her hospital bed.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident and would soon issue a statement.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it treated three Palestinians for injuries at Abu Falah. The wounded included a man who had been shot in the thigh, according to WAFA, the official media arm of the Palestinian Authority.

Clashes between Israeli settlers and Palestinian olive pickers also took place near the villages of Burqa and Turmus Ayya, which are located in the central West Bank, WAFA reported. The Palestine Red Crescent treated four people for injuries sustained at the clashes near Burqa, WAFA said.

Attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank have surged in recent years, particularly after the establishment of Israel’s current hard-right government in late 2022, according to statistics released by the United Nations humanitarian office.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has condemned the violence and vowed a crackdown against what he says is a small group of several hundred wayward youths responsible for attacks on Palestinians.

Despite those public promises by Netanyahu, the violence has continued in recent weeks.

Over the past 18 days,  Yesh Din, an Israeli settlement monitoring group, says it has documented 486 violent incidents against Palestinians across 181 different Palestinian localities, and that 234 of these incidents were related to the olive harvest.

In August, three journalists from NBC and a Palestinian woman they were interviewing were attacked by Israeli settlers in the IWest Bank.