Photographer Heidi Levine was hospitalized after allegedly being attacked by Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Friday, according to her employer, The Washington Post.
The attack is the latest reported instance of an American journalist facing violence, allegedly from Israeli settlers, in the West Bank, home to about 3 million Palestinians and 500,000 Israeli settlers. Israeli settlements in the West Bank remain a flash point for the region.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said at least 1,500 Palestinians had been displaced due to lack-of-permit demolitions, and more than 2,600 “in the context of settler violence.” Israeli leaders have condemned the violence from settlers.
...
Heidi Levine's Attack: What We Know
Levine’s injuries occurred as dozens of Israeli settlers allegedly attacked Palestinian villagers harvesting olives on Friday, the Post reported. Levine was wearing a protective vest labeled “PRESS” but was knocked to the ground and kicked. Her cameras and phone were taken. She was treated at a hospital in Ramallah.
“They just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times,” Levine said in remarks reported by the newspaper.
Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, a blogger who filmed the attack, told the Post that Levine was beaten by settlers using sticks.
Khrzhanovskiy also said that Israeli troops arrived shortly before the attack and “did absolutely nothing about the settlers.”
At least 1,600 settler attacks resulting in “casualties, property damage or both have been recorded across 275 Palestinian communities” during the first nine months this year, according to the report.
Newsweek reached out to the U.S. State Department via contact form and Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry via email for comment.
Benjamin Netanyahu Responds to Attack on US Journalist
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrote on X that the “confrontation” remains under investigation and that Israel “condemns violence against anyone.”
Still, he said, “serious questions remain.”
“Reports indicate some 200 Arabs and far-left activists confronted approximately 40 Israeli youths," he wrote. "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.”
Israel would “not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria,” he wrote.
Netanyahu has condemned settler violence in past cases.
“The actions of these violent extremists are a disgrace and stand in complete contradiction to the values of the State of Israel,” he said in a statement after an attack in August.
Israel Faces Criticism Over Attack
Reports of the attack drew criticism.
The organization T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, a coalition of rabbis with a goal to “act on the Jewish imperative to respect and advance the human rights of all people,” wrote in a statement that the attack is “horrifying.”
“What we are witnessing across the West Bank is a campaign of state-backed ethnic cleansing, in which violent settlers terrorize Palestinian communities, often with the protection or complicity of the Israeli military, to drive families from land they have lived on for generations,” the statement reads.
J Street described the attack as a “stain on the State of Israel for the world to see: Jewish supremacists terrorizing Palestinians while those charged with protecting them do nothing.”
Progressive commentator Mehdi Hasan wrote on X: “I can’t think of any other place in the world where people can regularly attack American citizens, American journalists, like this and our US political and media elites say nothing. No scandal, no outrage, no calls for action or accountability.”
Other American Journalists Attacked in West Bank
There have been several other cases of American journalists being attacked by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
Sara Qudah, regional director of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), wrote in a statement that the incident is “neither isolated nor the first on a journalist covering the olive harvest in the West Bank.” She said it is “part of a disturbing pattern of violence and harassment against journalists regardless of their nationalities.”
“These repeated assaults are taking place in an environment where perpetrators have little reason to fear consequences. Israel’s failure to ensure accountability is emboldening those who attack journalists, while the international community’s continued silence sends a dangerous message that these violations can continue unchecked,” she said.
In August, NBC News reported that masked Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian woman named Aida Ahmed Abdullah as well as three of their journalists during an interview. NBC News international correspondent Matt Bradley said the settlers jumped out of the car, beat them and then “jumped back in the car.”
Bradley was hit twice in the arm and treated at a local clinic. A producer and camera operator, as well as Abdullah, were also treated following the attack, according to the report.
The camera operator Khaldoon Eid said he did not expect the attack to occur in the middle of the village.
“We were in the middle of a Palestinian area next to Palestinian houses,” he said.
Netanyahu said the “criminal acts” only “hinder the IDF in fulfilling its missions and harm Israel’s standing in the world.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported in March that a CNN crew was attacked by settlers in the village of Tayasir, where reporters planned to document settler violence. The soldiers allegedly put photojournalist Cyril Theophilos in a chokehold, damaged a camera and detained the journalists, who were released two hours later.
According to CPJ, journalist Jasper Nathaniel was “stoned and his car window was smashed with a club by settlers” while he was covering an assault on Palestinian farmers north of Ramallah.
Journalist Eric Maddox said he was attacked while covering a march in the West Bank in May 2025, according to CPJ.
Senate Voted Against Bill to Require West Bank Report
Just weeks earlier, the U.S. Senate voted against a bill that would have required the State Department to provide a report to Congress on “increasing violence in the West Bank–including the killings of American citizens–and the daily injustices facing Palestinians.”
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote in support of the bill, while Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman crossed party lines to oppose it. It was introduced by Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat.
“The U.S. Government–including this Administration–has said time and again that our number one priority abroad is ensuring the safety and security of American citizens," Van Hollen wrote in a statement after the vote. "And yet, as we’ve seen violence rise in the West Bank, nine American citizens have been killed in recent years, and they have received no justice and no accountability. Their families–and the American people–deserve answers on their deaths. Republicans denied them that.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Dave Siminoff.