“You mean the footage of the Israeli terrorists beating her up isn’t clear enough?” one critic sardonically asked.
American freelance photojournalist Heidi Levine is transferred on a stretcher into a Palestinian ambulance from the government hospital in the Israeli-occupied city of Ramallah on October 16, 2026.
(Photo by Ahmad Gharabli/AFP via Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
Oct 16, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faced blistering criticism Friday after his office published a statement casting doubt on the circumstances surrounding a brutal attack earlier in the day by settlers in the illegally occupied West Bank that left an American journalist hospitalized.
“The facts surrounding the confrontation near Abu Falah, during which Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was allegedly assaulted, remain unclear and are under investigation,” Netanyahu’s office said on social media.
As Common Dreams reported, Levine—a 63-year-old Jewish American by birth who has reported from war zones including Afghanistan, Kosovo, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, and Syria—was covering Palestinian farmers desperately trying to harvest their olives when around 80 masked settler colonists descended upon them.
Armed with rocks, clubs, sticks, assault rifles, and the self-assured belief that their deity figure promised them all the land that was once ruled by Jewish kings millennia ago, the settlers set fire to the olive trees that are the backbone of Palestine’s rural economy and a literal symbol of Palestinians’ rootedness in their homeland.
The assailants fired guns and threw rocks at the olive harvesters, reportedly wounding at least two Palestinians. While documenting the attack, Levine—who, like other journalists killed or wounded by Israel, was clad in a helmet and a blue vest clearly marked “PRESS”—was set upon by settlers, knocked to the ground, and kicked dozens of times while her equipment was stolen.
“Israel unequivocally condemns violence against anyone—Jews, Arabs, Christians, or journalists,” Netanyahu’s office claimed. “Those responsible will be held accountable.”
“But serious questions remain,” the statement continued. “Reports indicate some 200 Arabs and far-left activists confronted approximately 40 Israeli youths. Footage shows masked individuals on both sides hurling objects, amid reports of fireworks fired at Jewish youths. Other footage appears to show Levine knocked down and immediately helped to her feet by the same unidentified individual.”
“The investigation must establish the facts, including who initiated the violence,” the office added. “We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents.”
The colonization of the occupied Palestinian territories by Jewish settlers—many of them non-Israelis who are availing themselves of the ethnosupremacist and apartheid policy of allowing any Jew to live in a land whose Palestinian inhabitants have been ethnically cleansed from it for nearly 80 years—is inherently illegal under international law.
Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray pushed back on Netanyahu’s statement on social media, saying: “To be clear: Some facts are neither in dispute nor unclear. Our photographer was clearly marked as press. She was clearly beaten. These are not partisan or risible statements, but indisputable. We urge a thorough investigation and accountability.”
International observers also criticized Netanyahu’s statement.
“They are actually trying to justify an American WaPo journalist being severely beaten by a mob of settler terrorists,” US commentator Krystal Ball said on social media, using the syllabic abbreviation for the Post.
Irish journalist Barry Malone responded to Netanyahu’s post on X, saying: “Hi. There’s video. It’s clear.”
US physician Amira Dalton said, “Israel lies and then calls you an antisemite for calling out their lies.”
The X account Israel Exposed, which has more than 400,000 followers, sardonically asked, “You mean the footage of the Israeli terrorists beating her up isn’t clear enough?”
The Israeli veterans’ group Breaking the Silence said that “you can see the settlers who attacked Heidi Levine, a journalist for The Washington Post. But what you can’t see is the state behind them: a state that funds them, arms them, and, above all, grants them near-total impunity for their actions. This violence does not happen in a vacuum. Israel enables it.”
While Lt. Col. Ariella Mazor, chief international spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, claimed the military had sent battalions to the West Bank to contain the outbreak of violence, eyewitnesses said the IDF was involved in the attack on Abu Falah.
“The army did nothing to stop the settlers,” Israeli journalist Oren Ziv, who was present during the attack, told The Washington Post.
That’s because Israel’s far-right government is unapologetically seeking to “finish the job of 1948,” as Netanyahu once put it—a reference to the ethnic cleansing of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the creation of the modern Israeli state—and take all of Palestine.
“The entire land is ours,” Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said earlier this month, in the lead-up to Israel’s October 27 elections.“This is our country.”
Last month, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich vowed to do in the West Bank “what we did in Gaza,” where three years of genocidal annihilation have left more than 250,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, nearly 2 million people forcibly displaced, and an estimated 70% of the territory under Israeli control.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at least 1,138 Palestinians—at least 250 of them children—have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank since October 2023.
At least nine Americans have been killed by Israeli settlers and security forces in the West Bank since January 2022, including journalists, human rights activists, and Palestinian Americans visiting relatives.
Despite claims by Israel that perpetrators of such attacks will be held accountable, impunity is the general rule.
“Sadly, none of them will be prosecuted,” Levine said of her attackers. “I am sure of it.”
Multiple US senators demanded that Israel bring Levin’s assailants to justice.
“The continued lack of accountability for settler violence in the West Bank has allowed attacks on innocent people, including multiple Americans, to go unanswered, and it is eroding what should be a strong alliance between the US and Israel,” Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) said on social media. “Prime Minister Netanyahu isn’t doing nearly enough to stop the violence.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) also took to social media after Friday’s attack, writing, “Today, another American citizen and journalist was brutalized by Israeli settlers attacking Palestinians in the West Bank.”
“This repeated violence and brazen impunity for attacks against Americans and Palestinians alike are unacceptable,” he added. “When will [President Donald] Trump and [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio DO SOMETHING?”
Israeli Settlers Brutally Beat Washington Post Journalist Heidi Levine While Attacking Palestinian Olive Farmers
“Unfortunately, I know very well that none of them will be prosecuted for what they have done and continue to do,” she said.
Heidi Levine, American photojournalist for The Washington Post and a foreign solidarity activist, receives medical treatment at a hospital after being attacked by Israeli settlers in the village of Turmusayya, northeast of the city of Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine, on October 16, 2026.
(Photo by Issam Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Stephen Prager
Oct 16, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
A gang of masked Israeli settlers brutalized a Washington Post journalist on Friday while they attacked Palestinian olive farmers and set fire to their grove in the occupied West Bank—the latest in an escalating series of state-backed terrorist attacks amid the Palestinian olive-growing season.
Roughly 80 masked men from a nearby hilltop settlement descended upon an olive grove near the village of Abu Falah, north of Ramallah. Video shows them hurling rocks and torching olive trees as Palestinian families fled downhill.
Gunfire could be heard, and at least two Palestinian men were reportedly wounded in the attack. Four more were reportedly hurt in separate attacks nearby.
Documenting the attack was 63-year-old Heidi Levine, an award-winning American photojournalist with the Post who has more than four decades of experience covering wars around the world.
Amid the rampage, Levine—clad in a helmet and a vest with a bright blue “PRESS” marker—was knocked to the dirt by a group of masked settlers, according to video posted by the American journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who was on the scene.
Another video shared by Israeli activist and journalist Andrey Khrzhanovskiy shows one of the settlers repeatedly beating Levine with a long stick while she lies on the ground defenseless. Levine later said she was kicked approximately 50 times and that the attackers took all of her recording equipment and other electronic devices.
Palestinian men reportedly threw stones to ward off the attackers, allowing other journalists to reach Levine.
A video shows Nathaniel, Khrzhanovskiy, and others rushing to a bloodied Levine and helping her to her feet. “They took everything,” she said. “They took all my stuff.” More Israeli settlers hurled rocks at them as they fled the scene.
Levine was taken to a hospital in Ramallah after Palestinian colleagues helped her get an ambulance. From her hospital bed, she spoke about the attack.
“My son Michael has always told me that his biggest fear would be that his mother would be killed by the settlers,” Levine said, noting that she’d covered the Israel-Palestine conflict for more than three decades and also been attacked 15 years ago.
“I was attacked, pushed to the ground,” she said. “Luckily I had my flak jacket and helmet; otherwise I probably wouldn’t even be here, because they just kept kicking me and kicking me.”
Levine, who is Jewish by birth, described the attackers as “Jewish terrorists” who “are giving everyone in the country a horrible reputation.”
“I don’t know how a parent could raise such monsters,” she said.
“While we are relieved that Heidi has received medical care and is safe,” said Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray in a statement Friday morning, “we are outraged by this unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job and urge a thorough investigation and follow-through from authorities.”
Levine, however, said she was confident that her attackers would never face justice. “Sadly, none of them will be prosecuted,” she told reporters. “I am sure of it.”
Particularly in recent years, under a far-right government that has accelerated the expansion of illegal settlements, settlers almost never face legal consequences for violent attacks.
A Guardian investigation found that from 2020 to 2025, more than 96% of police investigations into settler violence concluded without indictments, and only 2% resulted in convictions. Since 2020, despite dozens of fatal attacks, only one Israeli has been charged with killing a Palestinian in the West Bank.
“This violence does not happen in a vacuum. Israel enables it.”
Lt. Col. Ariella Mazor, chief international spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, told the Post that the incident is under investigation by the IDF and claimed the military had sent battalions to the West Bank to contain the outbreak of violence.
However, according to eyewitnesses, the Israeli military itself was reportedly involved in the attack on the village, firing tear gas at the Palestinians. Soldiers reportedly drove military jeeps through the olive groves and stood beside settlers rather than dispersing them.
Israeli activist Oren Ziv told the Post, “The army did nothing to stop the settlers.”
This has been the case in many of the more than 1,600 documented attacks that have occurred over the first eight months of the year—during which at least 23 Palestinians were killed and over 1,100 injured, according to the United Nations.
“Unfortunately, I know very well that none of them will be prosecuted for what they have done and continue to do,” she said.
Heidi Levine, American photojournalist for The Washington Post and a foreign solidarity activist, receives medical treatment at a hospital after being attacked by Israeli settlers in the village of Turmusayya, northeast of the city of Ramallah, West Bank, Palestine, on October 16, 2026.
(Photo by Issam Rimawi/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Stephen Prager
Oct 16, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
A gang of masked Israeli settlers brutalized a Washington Post journalist on Friday while they attacked Palestinian olive farmers and set fire to their grove in the occupied West Bank—the latest in an escalating series of state-backed terrorist attacks amid the Palestinian olive-growing season.
Roughly 80 masked men from a nearby hilltop settlement descended upon an olive grove near the village of Abu Falah, north of Ramallah. Video shows them hurling rocks and torching olive trees as Palestinian families fled downhill.
Gunfire could be heard, and at least two Palestinian men were reportedly wounded in the attack. Four more were reportedly hurt in separate attacks nearby.
Documenting the attack was 63-year-old Heidi Levine, an award-winning American photojournalist with the Post who has more than four decades of experience covering wars around the world.
Amid the rampage, Levine—clad in a helmet and a vest with a bright blue “PRESS” marker—was knocked to the dirt by a group of masked settlers, according to video posted by the American journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who was on the scene.
Another video shared by Israeli activist and journalist Andrey Khrzhanovskiy shows one of the settlers repeatedly beating Levine with a long stick while she lies on the ground defenseless. Levine later said she was kicked approximately 50 times and that the attackers took all of her recording equipment and other electronic devices.
Palestinian men reportedly threw stones to ward off the attackers, allowing other journalists to reach Levine.
A video shows Nathaniel, Khrzhanovskiy, and others rushing to a bloodied Levine and helping her to her feet. “They took everything,” she said. “They took all my stuff.” More Israeli settlers hurled rocks at them as they fled the scene.
Levine was taken to a hospital in Ramallah after Palestinian colleagues helped her get an ambulance. From her hospital bed, she spoke about the attack.
“My son Michael has always told me that his biggest fear would be that his mother would be killed by the settlers,” Levine said, noting that she’d covered the Israel-Palestine conflict for more than three decades and also been attacked 15 years ago.
“I was attacked, pushed to the ground,” she said. “Luckily I had my flak jacket and helmet; otherwise I probably wouldn’t even be here, because they just kept kicking me and kicking me.”
Levine, who is Jewish by birth, described the attackers as “Jewish terrorists” who “are giving everyone in the country a horrible reputation.”
“I don’t know how a parent could raise such monsters,” she said.
“While we are relieved that Heidi has received medical care and is safe,” said Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray in a statement Friday morning, “we are outraged by this unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job and urge a thorough investigation and follow-through from authorities.”
Levine, however, said she was confident that her attackers would never face justice. “Sadly, none of them will be prosecuted,” she told reporters. “I am sure of it.”
Particularly in recent years, under a far-right government that has accelerated the expansion of illegal settlements, settlers almost never face legal consequences for violent attacks.
A Guardian investigation found that from 2020 to 2025, more than 96% of police investigations into settler violence concluded without indictments, and only 2% resulted in convictions. Since 2020, despite dozens of fatal attacks, only one Israeli has been charged with killing a Palestinian in the West Bank.
“This violence does not happen in a vacuum. Israel enables it.”
Lt. Col. Ariella Mazor, chief international spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces, told the Post that the incident is under investigation by the IDF and claimed the military had sent battalions to the West Bank to contain the outbreak of violence.
However, according to eyewitnesses, the Israeli military itself was reportedly involved in the attack on the village, firing tear gas at the Palestinians. Soldiers reportedly drove military jeeps through the olive groves and stood beside settlers rather than dispersing them.
Israeli activist Oren Ziv told the Post, “The army did nothing to stop the settlers.”
This has been the case in many of the more than 1,600 documented attacks that have occurred over the first eight months of the year—during which at least 23 Palestinians were killed and over 1,100 injured, according to the United Nations.
Israeli army soldiers stand behind a masked man swinging a slingshot while hurling stones at Palestinians who had gathered for the annual olive harvest season, during an attack by Israeli settlers on the Palestinian village of Beita, south of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, on October 10, 2025. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)
Investigations by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented soldiers standing by as settlers attack Palestinians and destroy their property, shielding settlers from Palestinians attempting to defend themselves, and sometimes directly participating in attacks. Israeli authorities have also armed thousands of settlers and incorporated many into military units.
Israel’s Foreign Press Association, which independently provided video of settlers brutalizing Levine, said it had repeatedly warned Israeli authorities about threats to foreign journalists working in the West Bank. “Our repeated calls for action to confront this lawlessness have been ignored,” the group said.
“You can see the settlers who attacked Heidi Levine,” said Breaking the Silence, a human rights group led by Israeli veterans. “But what you can’t see is the state behind them: a state that funds them, arms them, and, above all, grants them near-total impunity for their actions. This violence does not happen in a vacuum. Israel enables it.”
At least nine Americans have been killed by Israeli settlers or security forces in the West Bank since January 2022, while numerous others have been injured—including journalists, human rights activists, and Palestinian Americans visiting family.
Members of Congress have requested information from the State Department about Israeli settler attacks on Americans, but have found themselves stonewalled by Trump administration officials.
Neri Zilber, a journalist and adviser to the US-based Israel Policy Forum, noted the lack of response from American institutions to the surge of settler terrorism.
“This happens every day in the West Bank. Every single day,” he wrote on social media. “Palestinians attacked, journalists attacked, Israeli and foreign observers attacked. When is the IDF going to start taking this seriously? And where is the US Embassy and Trump administration?”
Investigations by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented soldiers standing by as settlers attack Palestinians and destroy their property, shielding settlers from Palestinians attempting to defend themselves, and sometimes directly participating in attacks. Israeli authorities have also armed thousands of settlers and incorporated many into military units.
Israel’s Foreign Press Association, which independently provided video of settlers brutalizing Levine, said it had repeatedly warned Israeli authorities about threats to foreign journalists working in the West Bank. “Our repeated calls for action to confront this lawlessness have been ignored,” the group said.
“You can see the settlers who attacked Heidi Levine,” said Breaking the Silence, a human rights group led by Israeli veterans. “But what you can’t see is the state behind them: a state that funds them, arms them, and, above all, grants them near-total impunity for their actions. This violence does not happen in a vacuum. Israel enables it.”
At least nine Americans have been killed by Israeli settlers or security forces in the West Bank since January 2022, while numerous others have been injured—including journalists, human rights activists, and Palestinian Americans visiting family.
Members of Congress have requested information from the State Department about Israeli settler attacks on Americans, but have found themselves stonewalled by Trump administration officials.
Neri Zilber, a journalist and adviser to the US-based Israel Policy Forum, noted the lack of response from American institutions to the surge of settler terrorism.
“This happens every day in the West Bank. Every single day,” he wrote on social media. “Palestinians attacked, journalists attacked, Israeli and foreign observers attacked. When is the IDF going to start taking this seriously? And where is the US Embassy and Trump administration?”
