Masked Israeli Settlers Nearly Kill Washington Post Journalist as Attacks on Palestinians Escalate

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."