as attacks on Palestinians escalate
HAVANA TIMES – Israeli settlers backed by IDF soldiers brutally assaulted Palestinian olive farmers in the village of Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, on Friday. Witnesses say dozens of masked Israeli settlers armed with clubs, sticks, slingshots and guns hurled rocks at Palestinian farmers, set olive trees ablaze and drove people from their fields. Veteran Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, a 64-year-old American, was documenting the attack when settlers began beating her. She suffered stab wounds, a broken rib, four broken vertebrae and a severe hand injury. Levine was wearing a clearly marked press vest and a helmet at the time of the attack. According to the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, Israeli settlers have carried out at least 170 attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since September 27, which marked the start of this year’s olive harvest.
“It looked like they were killing her,” says independent American journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who witnessed the attack on Levine and helped intervene. “The Palestinian youth, the shabab, stepped up. They ran out ahead, and they started beating the settlers back by throwing stones at them, which is the only thing that allowed me to then run out front and grab Heidi.” As the journalists and Palestinians retreated into Abu Falah, “The Israeli military jeep that had been standing by the settlers who were attacking us then drives into the village itself, … and they start firing into crowds of Palestinian people.”
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.
In the occupied West Bank Friday, Israeli settlers brutally assaulted Palestinian olive farmers in the village of Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah. Witnesses say dozens of masked Israeli settlers descended from a nearby hilltop, armed with clubs, sticks and slingshots. Some even had firearms. They hurled rocks at Palestinian farmers, set olive trees ablaze, drove people from their fields.
Veteran Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine, an American, was on the scene documenting the attack when settlers surrounded and began beating her. At the time, she was wearing a vest, clearly marked “press” on the front and back, and a helmet. Video of the assault shows masked men surrounding Levine, knocking her to the ground, repeatedly beating and kicking her as she tried to protect herself. They reportedly stole her passport, camera, equipment, wallet and phone. She suffered a broken rib, four broken vertebrae, lacerations across her body and a severe injury to her hand. Levine was taken to a hospital in Ramallah, where she spoke to reporters.
HEIDI LEVINE: Today, I was brutally attacked by — I mean, we saw on the — in the distance, on the hilltop, I would say, at least 50 masked men. I was — I had a 100-to-500-millimeter lens that I could see them masked with slingshots. And when they came running down, I was attacked, pushed to the ground. Luckily, I had my flak jacket and my helmet; otherwise, I probably wouldn’t even be here, because they just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times. And then, after like 10 minutes, they, like, tried to get me to stand up, and then pushed me down again and continued to kick me. And I was trying to hold on to my cameras and my pouch, and I had my phone on a string on my neck, that they eventually just broke everything off of me and continued kicking me. And then, the next thing I noticed is I was getting evacuated by my Palestinian colleagues and medical service that rushed me in an ambulance first to the medical center in Abu Falah to check me and then to the hospital here.
AMY GOODMAN: From her hospital bed, Washington Post reporter Heidi Levine went on to say this.
HEIDI LEVINE: One message to their parents: I don’t know how a parent can raise such monsters, really, honestly. I have witnessed their behavior attacking families, and which we recently published a story. And I just am so ashamed that as a parent myself, I cannot understand how a parent can raise such individual monsters. They’re not even humans. And yes, they are Jewish terrorists, and they are giving everyone in the country a horrible reputation.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine speaking from her hospital bed in Ramallah after being attacked by Israeli settlers.
On Friday the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying, in part, quote, “The facts surrounding the confrontation near Abu Falah, during which Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was allegedly assaulted, remain unclear and are under investigation. … We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria,” Netanyahu said.
In response, The Washington Post executive editor, Matt Murray, wrote on social media, quote, “To be clear: Some facts are neither in dispute nor unclear. Our photographer was clearly marked as Press. She was clearly beaten. These are not partisan or risible statements, but indisputable. We urge a thorough investigation and accountability,” said The Washington Post.
In a post on X on Saturday, U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called the assault, quote, “despicable act of terror carried out by mass cowards,” unquote.
On Sunday, two days after the settler attack on Heidi Levine, President Trump endorsed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israel’s October 27th election.
According to the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, settlers have carried out at least 170 attacks against Palestinians since September 27th, which marked the start of this year’s olive harvest. Just a day after the settler attack on Heidi Levine, mass settlers attacked a group of European diplomats from France, Belgium and Poland who were visiting the West Bank village of Taybeh. Earlier today, Israeli police announced they had arrested 10 suspects as part of an investigation into violent incidents in the occupied West Bank.
We go now to the West Bank, where we’re joined by Jasper Nathaniel, who witnessed the attack on Heidi Levine and helped intervene. He’s a journalist covering Israel’s occupation of the West Bank on his Substack, Infinite Jaz. His new piece is headlined “The Palestinians Who Rescued Heidi Levine.” He’s joining us now from the occupied West Bank.
Thanks so much for being with us, Jasper. What happened?
JASPER NATHANIEL: Well, I mean, it’s olive harvest season here in Palestine, and, you know, the olive harvest is supposed to be a celebratory time of year. I mean, in years past, you know, whole families would come out together. There would be these beautiful picnic spreads, and, you know, it was a — there was no rush.
On Friday morning in Abu Falah, there were no women or children. There were just men rushing to pick the olives as fast as they possibly could, because just in the distance, on top of a hill, we were literally watching these settlers, who live in an outpost there that the Israeli government knows about. We watched them put on their masks, pick up their clubs and prepare for the assault. About an hour into the harvest, the settlers started charging down the hill.
And by the way, I should mention, this village coordinated with the IDF to do their olive harvest on that day, under the pretense that they would get protection from the settlers who are living on their land. The IDF didn’t show up.
So, the settlers start charging down the hill. They are all wearing masks. They’re holding, you know, these big clubs, and they’re swinging giant rocks that are — you know, can maim people when they hit them. As that’s happening, the farmers — many of the farmers start to retreat back into the village, but the shabab, or the Palestinian youth, sort of emerge and start protecting the village.
You have to keep in mind that this is not just about the olive harvest. Abu Falah, like in many communities around the West Bank, the olive fields there are the buffer zone between the violent settlers and the village itself. In other words, if the settlers were able to push past the olive groves, they would then be in the residential part of the community. They would be burning homes. They would be assaulting people. And they would basically try to, you know, expand their territorial control into the village.
So, these young Palestinians step up. All they have is rocks. They’re totally outgunned always. And they basically charge back at the settlers. And for maybe 10 minutes, the Palestinians were successfully defending their land with just stones. And then these settlers start setting the olive trees on fire. So, suddenly, there’s smoke in the air.
And then the thing that really changed things was when the IDF finally did show up. They came screaming in in a military jeep, and rather than do something to stop these masked settlers who were assaulting Palestinians on their own land, they start shooting tear gas at the Palestinians who I was with. As that’s happening — so, now there’s tear gas and smoke in the air — a truck full of settlers then speeds in. Settlers in the back, wearing all black, shooting M16s into the air like ISIS, start flying in. So, now there’s machine gun fire, too.
So, it was at that moment that everybody on the side of the village, as in the Palestinians and the journalists who were there and the activists who were there with them, just turn around and run. So, we’re all now just running back towards the village. And that is when Heidi was caught by settlers.
So, basically, once I got far enough out of the cloud of smoke and tear gas, I looked back, and I could just see a — within this massive mob of, like, probably 50-plus settlers, there is a smaller circle of maybe four or five just, like, savagely beating somebody on the ground with their clubs, with their feet, with their fists. I only discovered it was a journalist when somebody grabbed their blue press vest and pulled them up. And for a minute, I thought they were helping them, and then they held them up so that another settler could come and kick her in the stomach and knock her back down. So, we saw that this was happening, and me and a couple other journalists and a group of Palestinians, you know, knew that her life was in danger. I mean, it looked like they were killing her. In the video, you can see them, you know, raining down these blows with these clubs, that certainly could have killed her.
And so, there was really no way to get around the settlers, because they had fanned out across the fields, and they were continuing to throw rocks, and the army was tear-gassing us. And so, the only way to get to her was to go directly through it. And so, once again, the Palestinian youth, the shabab, stepped up. They ran out ahead, and they started beating the settlers back by throwing stones at them, which is what — the only thing that allowed me to then run out front and grab Heidi.
Once I got to her and I realized that it was not what I expected to see — it was, you know, a 64-year-old woman — she was in terrible shape. You know, she could not really stand on her own. She was completely dazed, clearly in agony. And I started trying to lead her out. As I’m doing that, the settlers make another charge towards us. And so, now I’m begging Heidi to run. She’s saying, “Let me die. Let me die.”
And then, just as I’m starting to think, “We might be overrun here. You know, these settlers could potentially catch us, and then I’ll be on the bottom of that pile,” once again, the Palestinian youth created a literal perimeter around us to protect us and to beat the settlers back with stones once again, just to defend two journalists who, you know, in many cases, they had met that day or hadn’t even met at all. And so, that’s when we were able to finally get Heidi to safety. The Palestinian Red Crescent came and met us, picked her up, got her into an ambulance and drove away.
After that, the Israeli military jeep that had been standing by the settlers who were attacking us then drives into the village itself. So, doesn’t arrest or do anything to stop the settlers who have just almost murdered a journalist; instead, they drive into the village, and they start firing into crowds of Palestinian people, hit a 54-year-old man in the thigh with an expanding bullet, shattered his femur. They later accused him of charging at the IDF with a sharp object. The New York Times has photographs that shows he was running away from them with a small plastic rake in his back pocket.
Then, you know, I got to the man who was writhing on the ground in pain. He was surrounded by soldiers who would not let paramedics near him. They were pointing their guns at the paramedics. They were throwing journalists out of the way. I got shoved by the butt of one of their guns. They were trying to demand that the man who they had just shot show him ID, and they said they would not allow him to get into the ambulance until he did. I don’t actually know if he ended up showing him his ID, but eventually the Palestinians were able to get him into an ambulance and drive away.
Sometime after that, I think there was more tear-gassing. The soldiers left. The settlers left. And then, I think, you know, the best — the only positive of this story is that the Palestinians then returned to their olive fields and resumed picking olives.
AMY GOODMAN: Jasper, we just have a minute, and I wanted to know about the U.S. response. You have the U.S. Ambassador to Israel Huckabee calling them “terrorists,” but you have President Trump, after Netanyahu denied the attack was clear — Washington Post refuted what he said — President Trump endorsed Netanyahu for his race for the prime ministership.
JASPER NATHANIEL: I mean, I think we should talk about Huckabee, because Huckabee actually is at a point now where he is willing to call these violent settlers terrorists. He did that six weeks ago when he visited Turmus Ayya, which is the town that I’m in right now. I’m sitting in Turmus Ayya. This is the largely American village where I filmed a brutal pogrom exactly a year ago, in which another old lady was clubbed by settlers. This town, Huckabee visited it because it’s full of American citizens who are being brutalized.
Six weeks ago, he stood in this village in somebody’s home and told the people there that they deserve to live with safety and peace and dignity, and that they were going to crack down on the terrorists that were killing them. This morning, Amy, a couple hours ago, settlers came in from the outpost, burned a home and cracked an American citizen’s skull open. So, that is how much Huckabee’s words count for. In this very town six weeks ago, he promised that they would be kept safe and there’d be accountability. Now he is nowhere to be found. His words are completely empty. People here are once again, you know, being beaten to within inches of their lives. Their homes are being destroyed. And, you know, it’s just — it’s business as usual on the West Bank, which is just, you know, relentless brutalization by the state of Israel, frankly.
AMY GOODMAN: And who’s the American citizen?
JASPER NATHANIEL: His name is Mohammed Sakat, and I know that there are pictures of the wound. It is — I mean, it’s really, really gruesome. His head is split wide open. And by the way, the day before Heidi was attacked, an American citizen in a town called Burqa was also beaten by settlers, almost killed. He has gigantic, deep gashes in his head. His skull was broken. That’s another American citizen, Haitham Taysir.
So, you know, listen, like, the American citizens here, their lives are not worth more than Palestinians, of course. But the fact that, you know, even when American citizens are brutalized, nothing is done — maybe some empty words, but nothing is actually done — I mean, it tells you all you need to know about how seriously the state of Israel is taking their problem of state-backed settler terrorism.
AMY GOODMAN: Jasper Nathaniel, we thank you so much for being with us, journalist covering Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. We’ll link to your piece, Infinite Jaz on Substack, “The Palestinians Who Rescued Heidi Levine,” speaking to us from the occupied West Bank.