Rubio urges Israel to crack down on Judea, Samaria violence

(Oct. 18, 2026 / JNS)

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that Washington wants Israel to do more to deter violence involving Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.

“We’re very disturbed by those images and what we’re seeing,” Rubio told reporters before boarding a flight to Uzbekistan.

“We’ve asked the Israelis and continue to ask them to crack down on that stuff,” he added.

Rubio said the U.S. State Department had inquired about an incident on Friday in which Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine was injured. He said he expects to hear back from the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem by Sunday.

Levine, a photojournalist who has covered Israel and the Middle East for three decades, was “attacked by Israeli settlers,” according to the Post.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office cast doubt on that account over the weekend and raised “serious questions” about whether Israelis or Palestinians were responsible.