US officials visit West Bank village after settler attacks on diplomats as Netanyahu stays circumspect
US diplomats visited the Christian town of Taybeh on Sunday after masked settlers attacked European diplomats and hospitalised an American photojournalist, while Benjamin Netanyahu stayed circumspect ahead of the October 27 election.
US officials visited Taybeh, a Christian Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, on Sunday, days after militant Israeli settlers attacked European diplomats and an American photojournalist. Riley Barnes, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, Brian Burch, the US ambassador to the Holy See, and other diplomats visited the Latin Convent church and were to meet members of the Christian community. Reuters
Belgian, French and Polish diplomats, a French mayor and Palestinian civilians had been attacked near Taybeh on Saturday by masked Israeli settlers. A day earlier, Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was hospitalised after being assaulted while covering an olive harvest; reports said she suffered broken vertebrae. Bernard Baudoux, the 78-year-old mayor of Aulnoye-Aymeries in northern France, said he was thrown to the ground, kicked and struck with iron bars by the attackers. Reuters Times of India
The visit coincided with Donald Trump endorsing ally Benjamin Netanyahu for Israel’s parliamentary election on October 27. Foreign minister Gideon Saar and the IDF blamed “Israeli rioters” for the diplomat attack, but Netanyahu — whose coalition is projected to lose its governing majority — was more circumspect, saying the diplomats had entered “a sensitive area with a history of confrontations without prior coordination with the IDF” and that the facts of the attack on Levine were “unclear”. Reuters
France urged Israel to arrest Saturday’s attackers and end criminal violence, but by Sunday no arrests had been announced in either incident; Israeli police said they had opened an investigation. Prosecutions of settlers are rare. Reuters Times of India
On Sunday, Reuters saw at least 10 masked settlers dressed in black hurling rocks at Palestinians and activists harvesting olives near Salfit; the farmers fled, and Israeli border police fired tear gas toward the hills. Settler attacks are surging — at least 170 since September 27, according to Israeli rights group Yesh Din. The West Bank is home to some 500,000 settlers and at least 3 million Palestinians. Reuters
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