{"id":634376,"date":"2026-10-18T14:00:14","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T14:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/634376\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T14:00:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T14:00:14","slug":"masked-settlers-attack-european-diplomats-in-the-occupied-west-bank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/634376\/","title":{"rendered":"Masked settlers attack European diplomats in the occupied West Bank"},"content":{"rendered":"

Masked settlers wielding metal bars attacked a group of European diplomats during a visit to the occupied West Bank, one of those assaulted said, on a second straight day of violence against Palestinians and foreigners during the sensitive olive harvest.<\/p>\n

At least four people have been killed and over 100 injured since the harvest began earlier this month, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Activists say Israeli authorities do little to stop attacks that involve weapons ranging from slingshots to guns. An attack on Friday (local time) seriously injured a Washington Post photographer and others.<\/p>\n

In the attack in the Christian village of Taybeh, settlers targeted Belgium\u2019s consul general, French and Polish diplomats and Catholic representatives, Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said. He linked the attack to Israel’s \u201cillegal settlement policy\u201d and pledged to push for further European Union sanctions. \u201cImpunity for violent settlers must end,” he added.<\/p>\n

Bernard Baudoux, a French mayor among those attacked, described it in a Facebook post. \u201cThree vehicles arrived. Several masked individuals, armed with metal bars, got out and came toward us with extreme aggressiveness,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

Baudoux said he put on his French tricolor sash. \u201cThat didn\u2019t stop them. I was struck with metal bars and kicked before being thrown to the ground. We were finally able to get back to our vehicles.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said he was fine. He and others had traveled to Taybeh to formalise a twinning agreement between the village and his community, and then participated in the residents’ olive harvest. Religious leaders in Taybeh also confirmed the attack.<\/p>\n

\"In<\/p>\n

In this image made from video provided by Amit Orfali, masked Israeli settlers confront a car driven by Israeli activists in the West Bank village of Taybeh. (Source: Associated Press)<\/p>\n

Video shows masked men approaching a vehicle<\/p>\n

Video shared by an activist at the scene, Amit Orfali, shows Baudoux leaning against a vehicle while sitting on the dusty ground. Other clips showed young masked men knocking insistently on a driver’s side window and asking for IDs, while other masked men carrying sticks advanced in the distance.<\/p>\n

Orfali said the masked men \u201cthreatened to kill us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The attacks came less than two weeks before closely contested elections that could end Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu\u2019s time in office. His government, the most nationalist and far-right in Israel\u2019s history, faces domestic criticism over security failures and international criticism over the treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Some of the government’s senior officials are settlers themselves.<\/p>\n

The French mayor was \u201cviolently assaulted by extremist settlers,\u201d France’s foreign minister, Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot, said on X, adding that Israeli authorities “must urgently put an end to this criminal violence and ensure the safety of civilians, as they are required to do under international law\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are deeply outraged by this incident,\u201d Poland\u2019s foreign ministry said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s military in a statement confirmed the attack on the diplomats and called it a \u201csevere act of violence,\u201d but said the visit had not been coordinated with it and no soldiers were at the scene.<\/p>\n

Israeli police said they had opened an investigation and vowed to work \u201cuntil everyone who took part in these cases is brought to justice\u201d. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar on X condemned the “severe acts of violence by Israeli rioters,\u201d adding that his ministry was in contact with ambassadors from the countries concerned.<\/p>\n

\"Netanyahu<\/p>\n

Netanyahu is reluctant to take responsibility for the attack on the diplomats. <\/p>\n

Netanyahu warns against \u2018premature conclusions\u2019<\/p>\n

But Netanyahu’s office later issued a statement warning against \u201cpremature conclusions\u201d in the incident and noted concerns about \u201ca coordinated campaign to smear Israel”.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu’s main rival in the elections, Gadi Eisenkot, said on X that \u201ca handful of criminals is burning up the last shreds of legitimacy left to the state of Israel\u201d.<\/p>\n

Eisenkot called it \u201cJewish terror\u201d \u2014 the same term the photographer for The Washington Post, Heidi Levine, used when speaking to The Associated Press from her hospital bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’ve been covering this region for over 40 years, and I have never seen this country in such a state as it is today,\u201d Levine said, adding that she was \u201cshocked and insulted\u201d that Netanyahu referred to the attack on her and others as an alleged one.<\/p>\n

Netanyahu in the past has attributed the violence to a small number of troublemakers. But cars have been burned, trees damaged and people hurt in communities across the Palestinian territory, with some people calling this the most dangerous season yet.<\/p>\n

The UN and much of the international community consider the settlements, many of them resembling developed suburbs, in the West Bank to be illegally occupied. Settlers have established hundreds of additional outposts without government authorisation, while still enjoying protection from the Israeli military.<\/p>\n

Israel captured the West Bank, along with Gaza and east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war, territories the Palestinians want for a future state. The West Bank remains under Israeli military rule.<\/p>\n

One of the latest criticisms has come from China, whose foreign minister, Wang Yi, told Israeli President Isaac Herzog this week that Israel should \u201cstop and revoke the act of forcibly establishing settlements in the West Bank,\u201d a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Masked settlers wielding metal bars attacked a group of European diplomats during a visit to the occupied West…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,14849,5107,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-634376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-israel-gaza-conflict","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}