10 arrested in West Bank attacks on Westerners
JERUSALEM—Israeli police said on Monday they had arrested 10 people in the West Bank after settler attacks on an American photographer and a French mayor.
The police said they raided several locations across the West Bank and also seized cars and potential evidence related to the attacks, which have stepped up as settlers disrupt Palestinians’ annual olive harvest.
“Following the severe incidents of violence over the past weekend, including the assault of a media worker and the suspected attacks on foreign civilians, an arrest operation was conducted before dawn,” said Maj. Gen. Moshe Finchi, the Israeli police’s West Bank commander.
Global outrage
“Suspects were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the violent incidents, violating a military commander’s order concerning a closed military zone, and illegal construction,” he said.
The attacks come after global outrage over mounting settler violence in the West Bank.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee sharply condemned settler violence during an olive harvest in the West Bank that injured several Palestinians and Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine as “a despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards.”
In a post on X late on Saturday, he called for “a full investigation, arrest and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law to whoever participated in this.”
Levine was seriously injured in the attack on Friday in the West Bank village of Abu Falah. Israeli police are also investigating an attack by Israeli settlers on European diplomats on Saturday in another West Bank village.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is facing a tight race for a new mandate in the Oct. 27 elections, has tried to shore up his right-wing base and had cast doubt on the circumstances behind the recent settler attacks.
Unconvinced
The opposition described the attacks on Westerners as a stain on Israel’s image and accused Netanyahu of allowing the violence to happen.
Rights groups note that Israel rarely prosecutes settlers when the victims are Palestinian.
Settler attacks against Palestinians—including killings, beatings, vandalism and arson —averaged six a day in the first half of the year, according to the United Nations.
Settlers on Friday attacked a convoy of European diplomats including the French and Belgian consuls general in Jerusalem as they went through the predominantly Christian town of Taybeh in the West Bank on Saturday.
Settlers beat up Bernard Baudoux, 78, the mayor of the northern French town of Aulnoye Aymeries and an advocate of the Palestinian cause who had come on a goodwill visit and was helping harvest olives.
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