An Agence France-Presse photographer was injured Friday after being attacked by Israeli settlers while covering the Palestinian olive harvest in the West Bank village of Beita, south of Nablus, AFP said.
“In my 30-year career, this is the first time I have faced violence of this kind,” said Jaafar Ashtiyeh, a veteran Palestinian photographer for the news agency. “If I hadn’t managed to escape, they would have killed me.”
Ashtiyeh said he was documenting the annual harvest, focusing on Israeli and foreign peace activists who had joined residents in the fields to help protect them from what Palestinians claim have been near-daily settler assaults in recent weeks.
Shortly after noon, he said, two groups of Israeli settlers — around 70 people in total — armed with sticks and stones, descended on the harvesters and journalists. Ashtiyeh was allegedly struck several times in the back, arm, and hand before being taken to a hospital and later discharged with bruises.
His car, along with several others parked nearby, was stoned and then set ablaze, he added.
Footage posted to social media showed clashes between settlers and Palestinian harvesters as IDF soldiers fired in the air to break up the crowds. Other videos and images depicted numerous vehicles on fire.
Ashtiyeh said troops had been stationed in the area before the settlers arrived, but made no effort to stop the assault. Instead, he recounted, soldiers fired tear gas and rubber bullets toward the olive pickers and activists to disperse them.
AFP’s Global Editor-in-Chief Mehdi Lebouachera condemned the incident, calling it “an outrageous attack” and “another illustration of the increasingly dangerous working environment for our journalists in the West Bank.”
“We urge the Israeli military to not only ensure the protection of journalists going about their work but also to ensure that the perpetrators are brought to justice,” he said.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry, settler attacks across Beita and nearby villages left at least 36 people injured on Friday — most suffering minor or moderate wounds, though two were reportedly shot.
Beita has been a frequent flashpoint for violent confrontations between settlers and Palestinians. The village sits near the illegal outpost of Evyatar, which was established in 2021 and later evacuated by order of the Israeli government, but settlers have continued to visit the area and press for its legalization.
The incident came amid a wider surge in settler violence across the West Bank since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre in southern Israel, with rights groups and UN officials warning that attacks on Palestinians — often carried out under the watch of Israeli forces — have intensified during the war in Gaza.