Tel Aviv, Oct 18. (dpa/GNA) – Israeli opposition politicians have strongly condemned an attack by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, that sent a US photographer working for the Washington Post to the hospital.
Yair Golan, leader of the left-leaning Democrats party, wrote on X that he had visited the photographer, Heidi Levine, in hospital on Sunday. Levine had been “brutally attacked by Jewish rioters,” he wrote.
The photographer described the “moments of horror” to him, Golan said. “The terrible fear of possibly not getting out alive. The blows, the blood and how the attackers left her injured on the ground.”
The Washington Post reported that dozens of masked Israeli settlers had attacked Palestinian villagers, who had been harvesting olives near the village of Abu Falah on Friday. The settlers had set olive groves on fire and thrown stones, the newspaper said.
Levine was injured in the attack, despite wearing a protective vest with “PRESS” clearly visible on the front and back, the Washington Post said. She was knocked to the ground and repeatedly kicked, and her phone and camera were taken.
Levine was left with cuts across her body, a broken rib, four broken vertebrae and exposed bone on one finger, which was torn open in the attack, the newspaper reported.
“A 65-year-old woman confronted with a group of hate-filled Jewish rioters,” Golan wrote on X, adding that the incident broke his heart and made his “blood boil”.
The former deputy chief of the general staff warned of the dangers of “Jewish terrorism”, and said security would be restored if the opposition wins the parliamentary election on October 27.
GNA