Washington Post Journalist Hospitalized After Israeli Settler Attack

Israeli settlers conducting an assault on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amid their autumn olive harvest also attacked a U.S. journalist on Friday, sending her to the hospital as she and other journalists were documenting the coordinated violent raid.

Heidi Levine, a veteran photojournalist for The Washington Post, was donning a “press” vest when settlers chased her and a group of other journalists away from the site of the raid on Palestinian families. They knocked her to the ground, stole her phone and cameras, and beat her.

“They just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times,” Levine said. Video of the attack shows Levine on the ground being beaten by masked assailants.

Fellow U.S. journalist Jasper Nathaniel said that Levine was being prepared for surgery on Friday morning Eastern Time. Her “injuries are significantly worse than initially thought,” Nathaniel said, adding that she has a cracked rib and may have been stabbed. He also posted a picture of her bloodied hand, which showed that she had multiple stitches in at least one finger.

Nathaniel said that Israeli settlers and soldiers had opened fire with machine guns on Palestinian families attempting to conduct their olive harvest and that at least one Palestinian was shot. Multiple witnesses said Israeli forces arrived on the scene to help protect and enable the settler raid. Journalist Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, who also witnessed the attack, said that the presence of the Israeli soldiers actually emboldened the settlers.

As Nathaniel and Khrzhanovskiy came to Levine’s aid and they ran from the settlers toward the Palestinian medics, video taken by Nathaniel shows a battered Levine saying: “I can’t. Let me die. Let me die.”

The Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, called for an investigation in response to the attack.

“This morning, a Washington Post photographer, Heidi Levine, was attacked by Israeli settlers while reporting in the West Bank. She was wearing visible markings clearly identifying her as a journalist. While we are relieved that Heidi has received medical care and is safe, we are outraged by this unwarranted attack on a journalist doing her job and urge a thorough investigation and follow-through from authorities.”

Israel is notorious for opening supposed investigations into incidents of settler or soldier violence, and either never finishing the probe or clearing themselves of responsibility.

Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office already cast doubt on the journalists’ and witnesses’ accounts of the attack.

“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 in a statement. “We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.”

Just a day before Levine was attacked, Nathaniel reported that another American, Haytham Taysir, was beaten by settlers in Ramallah.

The attacks come after a report last week found that the U.S. embassy in Israel has purposefully suppressed findings on nine Palestinian Americans who have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank in recent years.