Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Friday that the facts surrounding a settler attack on Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine in the occupied West Bank “remain unclear”, and called for an investigation into “who initiated the violence”.
In a statement on X, the Prime Minister’s Office said Levine had been “allegedly assaulted” during “the confrontation near Abu Falah”.
It cited reports that some 200 “Arabs and far-left activists” had confronted around 40 “Israeli youths”, without saying where the figures came from.
“We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonise the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria,” the statement said, using the Israeli government’s term for the occupied West Bank.
Witnesses said around 80 masked Israeli settlers attacked 64-year-old Levine, who was reporting on the Palestinian olive pickers in Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah.
Video circulated online shows several Israeli settlers throwing Levine to the ground and beating her.
Speaking from a hospital in Ramallah, Levine said the attackers “just kept kicking me and kicking me”, and took her cameras, phone and passport.
Washington Post executive editor Matt Murray called for a thorough investigation, saying Levine had been wearing “visible markings clearly identifying her as a journalist”.
Masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villagers on Friday, setting olive groves on fire and slinging rocks. Caught in the attack was Post photographer Heidi Levine. “They just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times,” Levine said. https://t.co/9YLUuU9ktP https://t.co/0SrFcIW4as
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 16, 2026