Washington Post Photographer Heidi Levine Hospitalized After Settler Attack During West Bank Olive Harvest

ABU FALAH, West Bank

Heidi Levine went to an olive grove on Friday to do the job she has done in conflict zones for decades: take pictures of people living through a hard season. She left it on the way to a hospital. The veteran Washington Post photojournalist was attacked by masked settlers while covering the Palestinian olive harvest near the village of Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, according to the Post, CNN and Reuters, whose journalists witnessed parts of the confrontation.

CNN reported that Levine, who was on assignment for the Post, was with a group of Palestinians who began to retreat when they saw dozens of settlers running toward them. In a video statement afterward, Levine said she was kicked while she was on the ground, and that her camera bag, her phone and her cameras were broken off her and taken. TheWrap, citing the Post, reported that she was knocked down, repeatedly kicked and stripped of her cameras and phone, and that she was hospitalized and is recovering. She was wearing visible markings identifying her as a journalist, including, according to TheWrap, a protective vest marked “PRESS” on the front and back.

What witnesses say happened in the grove

Reuters, whose team witnessed the attack, reported that some 80 settlers in black, their faces masked, came down a hill above a terraced olive grove where villagers from Abu Falah had gathered for the annual harvest. Reuters witnesses said some settlers carried gas canisters, some used slings to launch rocks at villagers, and some set olive trees on fire. According to Reuters, villagers moved down the hill and some threw stones back. A farmer who witnessed the attack, Moutaz Abdelhadi, told Reuters the settlers wanted to attack the villagers and force them from their homes.

Video of the attack, described by CNN, showed masked settlers, some with clubs, throwing stones, and a group surrounding Levine and throwing her to the ground. The Daily Caller reported that independent journalist Jasper Nathaniel filmed the attack and posted video of it, describing Levine as badly wounded and her equipment as taken. Palestinian medics said two people were injured and taken to hospitals in the Ramallah area, one of them Levine, according to Reuters.

Reuters also reported that at least two Israeli military jeeps came through the area partway through the attack, that soldiers fired tear gas in the direction of Palestinians, that the sound of live gunfire could be heard, and that a Reuters photographer saw at least one armed settler fire a gun. TheWrap, citing the Post, reported that one Palestinian was wounded by gunfire, according to a journalist who witnessed the attack, and that witnesses told the Post soldiers did not intervene during the attack on Levine. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment on Friday.

The Post condemns the attack; the military says it is investigating

The Washington Post responded within hours. Executive editor Matt Murray said in a statement, reported by CNN and provided to TheWrap, that Levine had been attacked while reporting in the West Bank and was wearing visible markings clearly identifying her as a journalist. The paper said it was relieved she had received medical care and was safe, called the attack unwarranted, and urged a thorough investigation and follow-through from authorities.

There are other accounts of responsibility, and they conflict. TheWrap reported, citing the Post, that an Israeli military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Ariella Mazor, said an initial review found troops were attempting to disperse a violent crowd and had not witnessed the attack on Levine, and that the military and Israeli police were conducting separate investigations. TheWrap also reported that the Binyamin Regional Council, which represents Israeli settlements in the area, blamed the Palestinian Authority for the confrontation — an account that journalists who witnessed the incident disputed, telling the Post that settlers initiated the attack on Palestinians. Those disputes are now, formally, a matter for the investigations the Post is demanding.

Not an isolated day in a violent harvest season

What happened to Levine happened in a season that aid and monitoring groups say has been marked by repeated violence around the harvest. Reuters reported that, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli settlements monitoring group, there have been at least 170 settler attacks since Sept. 27, around the start of this year’s olive harvest. TheWrap, citing the Post, reported that the United Nations documented more than 1,600 settler attacks resulting in injuries or property damage in the West Bank between January and August.

Journalists have not been bystanders to that pattern. TheWrap reported that Friday’s attack came 10 days after settlers beat Agence France-Presse photographer Jaafar Ashtiyeh with rifle butts while he was covering violence against Palestinian olive farmers near the village of Aqraba. Levine’s case is different in one respect that may matter for what happens next: she is an American journalist, working for one of the largest newspapers in the United States, attacked on camera while marked as press, with her own newspaper publicly demanding an investigation the same day.

For now, the confirmed facts are the ones her colleagues established on Friday: a veteran photographer went to work in a grove, was beaten and robbed of the tools of that work, and is recovering in a Ramallah-area hospital. The olive harvest in Abu Falah will go on, because it has to — the fruit does not wait for investigations. Whether anyone is held responsible for what happened under those trees is the story that comes next, and Previously will follow it in our news coverage, alongside today’s other developing stories including record flooding in Istanbul and aid cut off for 800,000 people in Yemen.