American freelance photojournalist Heidi Levine is transferred on a stretcher into a Palestinian ambulance from the government hospital in the Israeli-occupied city of Ramallah before she is handed over to an Israeli ambulance at a checkpoint for onward transport to a hospital in Tel Aviv, after she was attacked by Israeli settlers while photographing Palestinian farmers harvesting their olives, in the Palestinian village of Abu Falah on October 16, 2026. (AFP Photo)
Israeli settlers attacked a convoy of European diplomats in the occupied West Bank and beat up a visiting French mayor on Oct. 17, while U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned against a brewing “crisis” in the territory a day after an American photojournalist was injured in a brutal attack.
Violence is surging ahead of bitterly fought Oct. 27 elections, coinciding with Palestinians’ annual olive harvest which has been repeatedly disrupted by Israeli settlers as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seeks to shore up his pro-settlement right-wing base.
On Oct. 17, the 78-year-old mayor said masked settlers yelled defamatory comments about France and kicked and hit him with iron bars as he joined Palestinian olive farmers in the West Bank alongside top French and Belgian representatives in Jerusalem and Polish diplomats.
“I think that if settlers are behaving like this, there is a tolerance on the part of the Israeli government,” Bernard Baudoux, mayor of the northern French town of Aulnoye-Aymeries, said after he was attacked.
Baudoux, who was wearing a sash with the French tricolour, was seen collapsed on the side of the car after the attack but he did not need hospital care.
The attack came just one day after settlers beat up Heidi Levine, an American photographer for The Washington Post, who was in a moderate condition after suffering broken vertebrae.
“We’re very disturbed by those images and what we’re seeing,” Rubio told reporters, adding that U.S. President Donald Trump “does not want to see friction or anything, a crisis going on in the West Bank.”
Trump “doesn’t want to see a new spark,” Rubio added.
U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee said the beating was “a despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards” and demanded Israel prosecute and jail the assailants.
The son of the Washington Post noted that he was told that the newspaper’s billionaire owner, Jeff Bezos, has said he will take action to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice.
However, Netanyahu instead alleged a “smear” campaign against settlers.
Netanyahu said the diplomats should have coordinated their movements with the Israeli military and pointed out that Baudoux is a communist known for supporting the Palestinian cause.
