Attack also targeted European diplomats visiting Taybeh on Saturday

Israeli police said Monday they arrested 10 settlers accused of attacking a group of Palestinian olive pickers and journalists in the West Bank on Friday, including Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine.

Some of those arrested were also accused of attacking a group of European diplomats visiting the Palestinian town of Taybeh on Saturday, CNN reported. The diplomats represented Belgium, France, Poland and the Catholic Church, the BBC reported. Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prevot said a vehicle from the Belgian consulate had been attacked, and Bernard Baudoux, a mayor from France, was attacked.

The Friday attack occurred in Abu Falah, where dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians gathering the harvest, according to video captured at the scene and described by Andrey Khrzhanovskiy, a blogger who recorded the incident and spoke to The Washington Post. The attackers set olive tree groves on fire and hurled rocks, Khrzhanovskiy said.

Multiple journalists were attacked, including Levine, 64, who could be seen in the video falling to the ground and being repeatedly hit and kicked. At the time, she was wearing a protective vest marked “PRESS” on the front and back. She was taken to a hospital in Ramallah, where she was treated.

Levine told reporters the attackers kicked her “probably 50 times.” In an interview with the BBC, she said she had suffered broken vertebrae, a broken rib and lacerations on her body, and required surgery to repair a finger that had been torn open. She said her injuries could have been worse.

Journalists “don’t always want to wear flak jackets and helmets — it’s heavy, it can be a pain when other people aren’t wearing them, you feel kind of silly — but we all did and I’m grateful for that,” Levine told the BBC. “I think I would have suffered more serious injuries for sure, especially [to] my head. I tried to keep my face to the ground as much as I possibly could so that I protected it … I don’t guess, but I know that I’m actually really, really lucky.”

Independent journalist Jasper Nathaniel, also at the scene, described the attack to Al Jazeera. “We looked and saw that there was a journalist … on the ground with people surrounding her, beating her, clubbing her, robbing her, pulling her up, beating her again and kicking her,” Nathaniel said.

U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee welcomed the arrests in a post on X. “A very positive development in finding & punishing those who severely attacked and beat Heidi Levine,” Huckabee wrote.

Khrzhanovskiy told The Washington Post that Israeli troops were at the scene before the attack began and “did absolutely nothing about the settlers.” He said troops also fired tear gas at the Palestinians.

One witness told Al Jazeera and Wafa, the Palestinian-run news agency, that Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian man in the leg.

The Israeli human rights organization Yesh Din said Sunday there had been a reported 269 instances of violence during the past 20 days of the olive harvest.