A Washington Post photographer was injured on Friday during a violent confrontation in Samaria in which she was “attacked by Israeli settlers,” the newspaper’s executive editor stated.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office cast doubt on that claim and said that there are “serious questions” about whether Israelis or Palestinians were responsible for the attack.
Heidi Levine, a photojournalist who has spent three decades covering Israel and the Middle East, was “wearing visible markings clearly identifying her as a journalist” during the incident, according to the Post.
“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,” stated Matt Murray, the paper’s executive editor.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that “a female journalist was injured” during a confrontation near Khirbet Abu Falah.
“Upon arriving to the scene, the forces acted to disperse the confrontation using riot dispersal means,” it stated. “At another location where the confrontation took place, IDF soldiers initially fired warning shots into the air and then fired toward a suspect who ran toward them, carrying a sharp object and posed a threat to them.”
“The confrontation was dispersed,” the Israeli military said.
The IDF also said that “violence against innocent civilians is a grave and intolerable phenomenon” and condemned the incident. It said that Israeli police forces from the Judea and Samaria district would “collect findings and evidence, as well as take testimonies” as part of an investigation.
The IDF did not identify the suspects as “settlers.” Khirbet Abu Falah is a Palestinian village about 10 miles northeast of Ramallah in Samaria.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office said that the circumstances in which Levine was “allegedly assaulted” are “unclear and are under investigation.”
“Reports indicate some 200 Arabs and far-left activists confronted approximately 40 Israeli youths,” it said. “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,” the prime minister’s office said. “We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.”
In an interview she gave from a hospital bed in Ramallah, Levine was unequivocal that she was attacked by Israelis, who she said kicked her “probably 50 times” before trying to stand her up. She said they then pushed her down again, continued to kick her and stole her equipment.
“They are Jewish terrorists and they are giving everyone in the country a horrible reputation,” she said. “I cannot understand how a parent can raise such individual monsters. They’re not even humans.”
The issue of alleged settler violence, including attacks on American citizens, has become a point of contention between Israel and the United States.
Democrats in the U.S. Senate have pushed for sanctions on Israeli settlements and U.S. State Department reports on alleged human rights abuses in Judea and Samaria.
In September, the Senate blocked a resolution to demand a report on the deaths of American citizens “killed on the West Bank by violent Israeli settlers or members of the Israeli security forces.” The vote fell mostly along party lines.
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has described Israelis who have attacked Palestinians in Judea and Samaria as “terrorists.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during his speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September that discussion of “settler violence” was a “distortion” that ignored both peaceful Israeli settlers and the disproportionate number of attacks on Jews from Palestinians.
“What they cover is a handful of juvenile delinquents, about 150 in number, who throw stones, who chop down olive trees, occasionally they light some fires,” he said of the international media. “The number of casualties a year? Maybe two or three.”
Netanyahu told the United Nations that he had nonetheless deployed Israeli security forces to tackle “vigilantism.”
On Friday, the Prime Minister’s Office said that “Israel unequivocally condemns violence against anyone—Jews, Arabs, Christians or journalists. Those responsible will be held accountable.”
Gadi Eisenkot, leader of the Yashar Party and a leading contender to be Israel’s next prime minister if the opposition wins the Oct. 27 election, said that the “handful of rioters” do not “represent the public in Israel.”
“The actions of this handful stain an entire nation and severely harm the security of all Israeli citizens and IDF fighters,” he wrote.
