U.S. Diplomats Visit Taybeh After Masked Settlers Attack European Diplomats and American Journalist
U.S. officials visited the West Bank village of Taybeh on Sunday after masked Israeli settlers attacked European diplomats the day before and assaulted a Washington Post photojournalist covering the olive harvest. France demanded arrests, but none were announced by Sunday.
TAYBEH, West Bank: U.S. diplomats visited a Christian Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank on Sunday following a weekend of attacks by masked Israeli settlers on European diplomats and an American photojournalist, according to Reuters.
Riley Barnes, the assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, Brian Burch, the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, and a number of other diplomats visited the Latin Convent church in Taybeh. They were expected to meet with members of the Christian community, Reuters reported.
A day earlier, Belgian, French and Polish diplomats, a French mayor and Palestinian civilians were attacked near Taybeh by masked Israeli settlers during the olive harvest, according to Reuters. Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said on X that his country’s consul general was among those targeted, that a Belgian consular vehicle was damaged, and that a French mayor was assaulted, the Daily Caller reported. Bernard Baudoux, the mayor of Aulnoye-Aymeries in northern France, told Agence France-Presse that the attackers kicked him and struck him with iron bars, according to the Daily Caller.
The day before that, Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was taken to a hospital after being assaulted while covering a Palestinian olive harvest near another West Bank village, Reuters reported.
Split Israeli response
Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and the Israeli military both blamed “Israeli rioters” for the attack on the diplomats, Reuters reported. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was more circumspect: he said the diplomats had entered “a sensitive area with a history of confrontations without prior coordination with the IDF” and that the facts of the attack on Levine were “unclear,” according to Reuters. His office also suggested the reports could be part of a coordinated campaign to smear Israel, the Daily Caller reported.
The diplomats’ visit came as President Donald Trump endorsed Netanyahu for Israel’s parliamentary election on October 27, Reuters reported. Trump has said he opposes settlement expansion, but his administration has put little pressure on Netanyahu’s right-wing, pro-settler government to change its policy, according to Reuters.
France urged Israeli authorities to arrest Saturday’s attackers and to end criminal violence in the West Bank, but by Sunday there was no announcement from Israeli authorities of any arrests in either incident, Reuters reported.
Violence during harvest season
The West Bank is home to some 500,000 Israeli settlers and at least 3 million Palestinians. At least 170 settler attacks on Palestinians have been recorded since September 27 by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, according to Reuters. Journalists, activists and foreign observers were also among those targeted. Prosecutions of Israeli settlers are rare.
On Sunday, Reuters reporters saw a group of at least 10 masked settlers, dressed in black, hurling rocks at Palestinians and activists harvesting olives near the West Bank town of Salfit, prompting the farmers to flee. Israeli border police were in the area and fired tear gas toward the hills.
UN bodies and most countries consider the settlements illegal under international law. Israel rejects that view, describing the territory as disputed rather than occupied, Reuters reported.
Reporting based on coverage by Reuters and the Daily Caller.
