Palestinian youths shield US journalist from Israeli settlers

A US photojournalist working for The Washington Post has recounted how Palestinian youths helped save her during a brutal attack by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank that left her seriously injured.

Heidi Levine was attacked by a group of settlers last Friday while covering the olive harvest near Abu Falah, north-east of Ramallah, alongside Palestinian villagers, journalists and activists.

She said local Palestinians formed a “protective shield” to help protect her from the attackers.

“The Palestinian youth put themselves in front and were trying to keep them [the settlers] away, keep a protective shield, which was amazing,” Levine told British newspaper* The Guardian *on Wednesday.

She described the scene as being “like a biblical battle”.

*The Guardian *cited witnesses who said Palestinian youths drove the settlers back, allowing US journalist Jasper Nathaniel and other reporters to reach Levine and help her to safety.

Levine said the violence escalated after Israeli forces arrived at the scene.

A group of masked Israeli settlers had appeared on a nearby hilltop, watching the Palestinian villagers, journalists and human rights activists accompanying the harvesters.

“Then all hell broke loose. Some of the farmers started to gather their tarps and bags of olives that they had picked,” she said.

“Then all of a sudden I hear a machine gun, and then saw tear gas in the distance. I started to run … It was just like a lot of commotion and then all of a sudden I see a dozen of them and they started charging at me.”

Levine sustained four fractured vertebrae, two broken ribs and four puncture wounds after being knocked to the ground and repeatedly beaten by the masked settlers.

She said she was kicked and struck with sticks “probably more than a hundred times”, even after attempting to play dead.

The photojournalist also said she feared she could have suffered brain damage or lost an eye had she not managed to keep her face towards the ground during the beating.

Despite her injuries, Levine said she intended to resume reporting from the occupied West Bank once she had recovered.

“My work is important,” she said. “They have bruised me, broken some bones, but they haven’t cracked my spirit.”

Meanwhile, fellow US journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who helped rescue Levine, wrote on his website that the young Palestinians had been instrumental in saving her life, stressing that they were “prepared to defend the community against the invaders”.

Nathaniel added that “had the shabab (young men in Arabic) not stepped up to protect her, she might well be dead”.

“It is no exaggeration to say that young Palestinians armed only with stones risked their lives to save Heidi Levine’s,” he wrote.

Levine also condemned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office for questioning accounts of the assault in a statement posted on the social media platform X, which referred to an “alleged attack”.

The statement further claimed that some footage “appears to show Levine knocked down and immediately helped to her feet by the same unidentified individual”.

"That’s such bullshit. They helped me up because they couldn’t get my things off of me. That’s why," Levine told* The Guardian*.

"They robbed me of everything I have – a pouch with my documents, my American passport, credit card, camera disk and a small camera bag with two other lenses. Everything is gone … That’s why [they stood me up], and then they threw me back down and continued to kick and hit me."

Levine, who is Jewish and has lived in Israel for four decades, said Israeli President Isaac Herzog had personally called her to apologise for the attack. She quoted him as saying the settlers responsible were "not representative of who this country is".

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee also condemned the assault as a “despicable act of terror” and called for those responsible to be prosecuted.

Israeli police have since arrested 10 suspects following the incident in Abu Falah.

However, an Israeli court released four suspects in the assault on Levine on Wednesday and placed them under house arrest, citing insufficient evidence to keep them in custody.

Asked whether she expected her attackers to face justice, Levine rated her confidence at “two out of 10”.

“I am not very hopeful,” she told The Guardian. “Of course, if the government made the decision to do something and crack down on this and get people arrested, they would do it.”

Israeli settlers have intimidated Palestinians harvesting olives in the occupied West Bank for decades.

However, this year has seen a sharp escalation in violence, alongside widespread theft of crops, according to Palestinian witnesses, rights groups and the United Nations.

Israeli rights group Yesh Din reported on Wednesday that it had documented 125 physical attacks on Palestinian olive harvesters during the 24 days since the season began, alongside 168 incidents of crop theft. Israeli military forces were present in at least a quarter of the cases.

Yesh Din warned that settler violence was "part of a campaign of ethnic cleansing, paving the way for the annexation of the West Bank without its Palestinian population".

UN bodies, with support from countries around the world, have repeatedly affirmed that Israeli settlements in territory occupied during war are illegal under international law governing military occupation.