On Friday, a group of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian farmers who were harvesting olives in the West Bank. In the process, they also beat up an American Washington Post photographer, Heidi Levine, who was there to cover the annual olive harvest. The attack prompted rare criticism of the Israeli government from the United States Embassy in Jerusalem, which requested an investigation. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that an investigation was warranted, while also casting doubt on what occurred. (On Saturday, after settlers also attacked a group of European diplomats during a visit to the West Bank, Netanyahu raised the prospect that it was part of a “coordinated campaign to smear Israel.”) Over all, in 2026, violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has increased significantly from prior years; the next Israeli election is in late October.
I recently spoke by phone with Jasper Nathaniel, a journalist who covers the West Bank for his Substack, and who was present during the assault on Levine. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how the Israeli government has been increasingly aiding extremist settlers, the changing attitude among Israeli settlers toward Americans in the West Bank, and what happened during the attack on Levine and others.
How many times have you been to the West Bank in the past couple of years?
This is my fifth trip since January of 2024. Each trip is around a month, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little bit less. For this trip, I arrived on October 6th, and I am definitely staying past the election, which is on October 27th.
How have things changed over those nearly three years?
There are real material changes, because there are lots of villages that I visited as recently as last year that just don’t exist anymore. They have been literally wiped off the map and replaced by either an outpost, or in some cases a new neighborhood of a settlement, or a closed military zone. [Outposts are officially unauthorized by the Israeli government, although many of them eventually become retroactively legalized.] So there have been actual material changes to the geography and the demographics.
Since this government came in, in 2022, and certainly since October 7, 2023, the settlers have been emboldened. And the threshold for when they turn to violence has just gotten lower and lower. In other words, it used to be the case that many settler attacks would start with settlers coming into a village and accusing Palestinians of something like stealing a goat, and then they would go house to house, kicking down doors looking for the goat, and then eventually it would turn into a fight.
Now what you’re seeing is, literally every single day, huge mobs of settlers put on masks, wear all black, pick up clubs and machine guns, and launch coördinated attacks. And these attacks are not random at all. The way that the map has changed in the West Bank is precisely what Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, has laid out numerous times when he’s described how Israel is going to create Jewish sovereignty across the West Bank. So, for example, take the attack on Friday in Khirbet Abu Falah. There is an outpost that exists there, and it’s not there for no reason. It’s a strategic piece of land because it cuts off a point between two villages. It creates continuity between different settlements, and the Israeli government wants that piece of land, and so the settlers are out there doing their dirty work by terrorizing the Palestinians. They have effectively taken over all of the farmland there. You may see some Israeli officials condemning yesterday’s attack because it was so gnarly and involved an American, but, at the end of the day, the most violent settlers are working toward a state project of taking over land in the West Bank. And so, yes, the violence has increased both in intensity and in scale.
The settlers seem to be acting with more confidence, brazenness, and violence. How would you define their mentality?
I think the biggest thing is that they appear to be much more organized. I’ll give you an example. In Masafer Yatta, which is in the Hebron Hills, there’s been settler violence there for a very long time, but only in the past couple of years has what is essentially a gang formed. It’s run by a guy named Shimon Atiya, and he runs a farm, and there are lots of young men and teen-agers who work for him, and some of them actually live with him. And these guys go from village to village, vandalizing property, letting their livestock feed on Palestinian land, and beating up residents in some cases.
They appear like a gang because what happens is, first, there will be a couple of maybe twelve- or thirteen-year-old kids who come and try to plant an Israeli flag somewhere. And then when people try to stop them, a couple of older kids will come and start pushing and shoving and punching, and then maybe Atiya or one of his right-hand men show up with a gun and start waving the gun around and actually scaring the crap out of people to make them leave. So I am seeing a level of organization with what are essentially settler militias that I did not witness three years ago. And part of that is because the settlers are so well supported and resourced by the government and by the military. I mean, they have the ability to basically create these little org structures.
What do you mean by that?
A guy like Atiya or Elisha Yered or Amishav Melet has a direct connection to the I.D.F., or a commander in the I.D.F. that they work directly with. And that I.D.F. commander is responsible for giving them an official I.D.F. guard, who basically serves as their personal security and their enforcer in some cases. [In a statement, the I.D.F. said, “The claim that the IDF provides personal security guards to the leaders of the outposts is entirely unfounded.”] So settlers have this sort of direct material connection to the military that, in years past, may not have existed at all. At other times it was probably more tacit, but now it’s direct. There’s a guy in the I.D.F. central command whose job is to meet with outpost leaders and make sure they have everything that they need, and that includes money, too.
And so then that money is used to pay shepherds to work for them. And part of what the shepherds do is they bring their livestock onto Palestinian land to destroy their vegetation, so they kill off the farmland. So they’re operating in this very strategic way that, from a distance, appears to be random. And I think at one time in the past it was more random, but now you can just see that it’s a well-oiled machine.
So the approach by authorities has changed from letting violence happen to actively working with the perpetrators?
Absolutely. I think that’s the biggest change. Smotrich, in addition to being the finance minister, also heads up something called the Settlement Administration, which he created within the Ministry of Defense so that he could basically take charge of the military occupation of the West Bank and clear all the red tape involved in authorizing new settlements, or new roads, or things like that. So, for example, it is now much, much, much easier for a settler leader who wants to create a new outpost to get whatever resources he needs for that, because all that red tape that used to be there doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s a bunch of messianic settler ideologues like Smotrich in the government, who are just rubber-stamping most of what they want.
And that also trickles down to the fact that these settler groups are unbelievably well armed. Settlers have been basically deputized into these groups called Hagmar, where they just become settler-soldiers, who are basically wearing full I.D.F. attire and have rifles. Smotrich has what is called a sovereignty plan, which he unveiled last year, to basically squeeze Palestinians into six major population centers, which include Ramallah and the other big cities. And the way that the settler violence has unfolded recently, the way that the outposts are popping up and the villages are being emptied—it’s in direct alignment with his plan.
I have heard people say that the attack on Heidi Levine only got so much attention because she was American, when in fact this type of thing happens constantly to Palestinians, including during the attack on Friday, with much less attention. This is surely true, but I also think it’s important to understand how the settlers and the Israeli government view the risks of attacking Americans, especially American journalists. How has this question changed since you started making these trips, which was during the Biden Administration?
A Palestinian American who I talked to about this told me that, under Biden, if an American was beat up or they had their home burned or something, or an American was brutalized by the I.D.F., somebody from the Embassy would come and send their condolences, and then they would leave, and the victim would never hear from them again. With the Trump Administration, they have not even been making the trip. In other words, there’s no material difference between the two. It’s just that one of them was putting a dressing on it to act like there was some care.
I think that Palestinian Americans are a good measure for this because they look like other Palestinians, but they have blue passports. And so it’s sort of like you’re controlling for a variable here. There are Palestinian communities in the West Bank which are, like, eighty per cent Palestinian American. Because of their dual citizenship, they used to be pretty insulated from the violence of the occupation, from the settlers. But that privilege disappeared on October 7th. And now those Palestinian Americans are coming to terms with the fact that they’re actually just Palestinians. There’s no distinction.
As far as Americans who are not also Palestinian, like myself, or Heidi—I mean, look, it’s anecdotal, but I will tell you that, in my five trips, the level of violence that I have directly faced myself has quite literally increased. My first three times, nobody ever actually laid hands on me. I was in cars that were attacked. I was chased. I had guns pointed at me, but nobody ever struck me. The last time I was here, in June and July, I was attacked multiple times. This trip, I’ve been here for ten days, and to tell you the truth, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been attacked already. And, listen, I don’t look Palestinian. I’m usually shouting in English. A lot of the time I’m wearing a press vest or I’m shouting that I am a journalist, and they just don’t give a shit. They don’t even blink. It doesn’t faze them. They still come after me just like they would anyone else.
Can you explain what happened on Friday?
It was the olive-harvest day in Khirbet Abu Falah, a Palestinian community in the West Bank. And, like I said, there’s this outpost that exists on the top of a hill that overlooks the olive fields, and the Palestinians are routinely attacked by settlers that live there. So, because of these attacks, the olive fields have basically been off limits for the Palestinians, but this is their livelihood, and this is the harvesting season. And so, basically, what a lot of these communities do is pick a day, or a couple of days, when everybody will go out together, and the hope is that there will be protection in numbers.
But, from the minute we got there, we were watching the settlers at the top of the hill prepare for an attack. I mean, we were literally watching them suit up, put their masks over their heads, pick up their clubs, and it looked like a group of people getting ready for battle, which is exactly what they were doing. The olive harvest is supposed to be this peaceful and celebratory family affair, but in this case, because of the risk of attack, it was only men who went to harvest. There were no women or children there, and they were just racing as fast as they could to get the olives off the tree, because we were watching the settlers get ready to attack. About an hour into it, they start charging down the hill, and initially they are just hurling really big rocks, and they have these slings that they use. So these are really big rocks that are coming in from a distance, really fast, and, if you get hit by one, it can do real damage. So first they’re just charging down with rocks. There’s probably forty to fifty of them. And you have to keep in mind that the olive fields—and this is the case in a lot of Palestinian villages—are basically the buffer between the outpost and the village itself, the residential core of the village. And so, if the settlers are able to push right past the olive fields, they’re now in the village, and they’re going to start ransacking homes and basically doing a pogrom.
So, in other words, the Palestinians had an interest in defending themselves, not just to defend themselves so they could continue picking olives but because it’s existential. It was sort of a remarkable thing to witness, but dozens of young Palestinians just put masks on and picked up rocks and charged back at the settlers, and they beat them back. And so there was about ten to fifteen minutes where it was like a battle. The settlers would make a push and hurl rocks, and then the Palestinians would charge back. Then things changed when the settlers started setting trees on fire, and so now there’s smoke in the air, and the Palestinians are having a harder time pushing forward because of that. And then the military showed up and started tear-gassing the Palestinians. So, once there’s tear gas—you can’t run through tear gas. So everybody’s basically now in retreat, and then out of the tear gas emerges a white pickup truck with, I think, two or three settlers, in black hoodies, holding rifles, shooting them into the air. And, as soon as we heard machine-gun fire, everybody just turned around and ran.
And you’re running along with everyone else?
Oh, yeah. I was right at the front line and, as soon as I heard the machine-gun fire, that’s it.
When you say you’re at the front line, you’re observing as a journalist here?
Yeah. I’m just there taking cover and filming what’s happening. And so, as everybody’s running backwards, that must be when Heidi was caught. I’m not sure if she fell or if she was just overtaken. I mean, she’s sixty-three years old, and these settlers are maybe a third or fourth her age. But, basically, after we retreated and the charge stopped, I look back, and I see somebody in a press vest on the ground with five or six settlers on top of them, just beating them over and over with clubs. It was truly barbaric. At one point, we saw them lift her up by her collar, and I was, like, “Oh, are they helping her up?” And then somebody came and kicked her and knocked her back down, and then they continued beating her. They stole everything off of her: her phone, her camera, her multiple cameras, her wallet, her passport.
At this point, I actually didn’t know who was being beaten, but I was worried this person was going to be killed, and we were trying to figure out how to get to her because there was still this mob of settlers attacking us, plus there was tear gas in the air. A group of young Palestinian men appeared and led the way, started throwing rocks, and pushed the settlers back. And so the reason that the settlers stopped attacking Heidi is that they were forced to retreat. And that’s how I was then able to reach her. I saw her and I was shocked. I was, like, “Why is my Jewish mother here on the front lines of this battle?” I helped her up. She was in really, really bad shape. At first, I didn’t think we were going to have to run, because the settlers were retreating, but then they charged us again, and so then we had to run. I mean, in the video, you hear her say, “Let me die, let me die.” Fortunately, we were able to get her to the back, and some Palestinian paramedics picked her up. Again, the whole time, the only reason we were not completely overtaken is because these young Palestinian men were protecting us with rocks.
When did it stop?
It ended after that happened, which was the last of the major settler violence that day. But then the I.D.F. soldiers who have been there, who’ve been tear-gassing the Palestinians and providing cover for the settlers, stormed the village. Rather than go after the settlers who have just nearly killed a woman, they stormed the village and started firing their weapons, and they shot a Palestinian man in the leg. The bullet shattered his femur and left countless bullet fragments that surgeons were unable to remove. He had to have a major surgery. I heard the gunshots, ran over, and was trying to document it, and soldiers were pushing me around, trying to throw me on the ground. One soldier aimed his gun at the paramedics. The New York Times reported that they were demanding the wounded man show his I.D. or he wouldn’t be able to go to the hospital. And then at some point, he was put in an ambulance, which took him away, and then the soldiers hung around for a bit. They shot a little more tear gas, and then they left. And then, actually, what was cool was that the Palestinians then went back out to their olive harvest. I mean, frankly, the feeling on the ground was that, despite two really grave injuries and other injuries, it was sort of a win for the Palestinians, because they did beat the settlers back and return to their olive fields.
The reason I keep bringing up the Palestinians throwing rocks to protect Heidi is because, I mean, I can’t emphasize enough how much these young men are . . . Yesterday, they put their lives on the line. There were soldiers there, and soldiers will shoot when somebody is throwing rocks. These young men put their lives on the line to protect a sixty-three-year-old Jewish American journalist. And, I mean, these guys are heroes. If they were not doing that, so many villages would’ve been overtaken. They are literally the only defense. [On Saturday] I was in a village called Jalud, and the exact same thing happened. We got attacked by settlers, and it was these young men, whom we call the shabab, who fought them back with rocks. And the reason I just want to put a fine point on this is because, for me, just in terms of where things are going with Israel-Palestine politically, I think that a sort of discursive shift in how we talk about Palestinians’ right to defend themselves needs to happen.
To what degree is the election, which is in less than ten days, on people’s minds, either in terms of how Palestinians are thinking it will or won’t change what’s happening, or in how Israeli settlers are thinking about it, or just in the broad politics of what all this means internally for Israel?
It is top of mind for everybody. For the Palestinians, they are all over the map when it comes to their politics. Some of them don’t believe that there’s any version of an Israeli government that would allow them to live a decent life, but most Palestinians, especially the ones in vulnerable communities, feel that if Netanyahu is out, and that means Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir are out, there will at least be a degree shift in the level of overt support that these settlers are getting from the military and from the government. Nobody thinks that a new government is going to roll back the settler movement. And nobody thinks that Gadi Eisenkot, the opposition leader, is going to even dismantle the outposts or anything. But the hope is that settlers will get fewer guns, and less support to just build roads wherever they want. Still, Eisenkot went to an illegal outpost earlier this year, a notoriously violent one, and met with the leaders there, in what one can only assume was a political meeting, a signal to them that they didn’t have to worry if the government changed.
The other way that it’s affecting things right now is that there’s a feeling that the settlers are racing against the clock, that if the government changes they’re not going to have as much support, and so they need to basically steal as much land as they possibly can before the clock runs out.
Facts on the ground.
Exactly. And, by the way, that is the entire philosophy of Smotrich, who is running the ethnic-cleansing campaign in the West Bank, and who has said he wants to change the DNA of the system, meaning changes in the bureaucracy and the governing mechanisms, which will make it impossible to undo this stuff.
I think that the last thing I’ll mention is that there’s a real fear about what’s going to happen immediately after the election, because, if Netanyahu wins, the settlers are going to be doing celebratory pogroms. If Eisenkot wins, they’re going to be doing revenge pogroms. Heads I win, tails you lose. ♦