🇵🇸🇮🇱 Settlers beat Washington Post photographer, Netanyahu's office blames the victims

Heidi Levine, a veteran American photojournalist on assignment for The Washington Post, was beaten by Israeli settlers on Friday while covering the Palestinian olive harvest in Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah.

Around 80 masked settlers stormed the olive groves, setting trees on fire and launching rocks with slings at Palestinian families gathered for the harvest. Levine was wearing clear press markings. She was knocked to the ground and beaten as settlers surrounded her. Video shows her lying bloodied on a dirt path, telling those trying to help her: "I'm going to die."

The settlers stole her camera equipment. According to Italian media, she suffered four fractured vertebrae and a broken rib, and needed surgery on her hand. Witnesses say IDF soldiers on the scene did nothing to stop the attack.

➡️Netanyahu's office downplays it

Instead of condemning the attackers, Netanyahu's office said the facts remain "unclear" and that Levine was "allegedly assaulted." It claimed 200 "Arabs and far-left activists" confronted around 40 "Israeli youths," pointed to fireworks supposedly fired at the settlers, and suggested footage shows Levine being helped to her feet by the same person who knocked her down. The statement ended by warning against using "disputed incidents" to "demonize" settlers in the West Bank.

Levine called the claims "absolutely untrue" and "insulting."

➡️Herzog apologizes, but won't say "settlers"

A day later, President Isaac Herzog called Levine, apologized, and condemned the "outrageous and shocking violence," including Saturday's attack on European diplomats and a French mayor in nearby Taybeh. Yet his statement describes the attackers only as "violent rioters" and "lawbreakers," without once mentioning that they were settlers.

One beaten American journalist, one assaulted French mayor, smashed European diplomatic cars, two days in a row. And Netanyahu's office still says the facts are "unclear."

🔴 @DDGeopolitics