From the Liveblog of
Sunday, October 18, 2026
Rubio says he is ‘very disturbed’ by scenes of settler violence in West Bank, urges Israeli crackdown
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The United States wants Israel to do more to deter attacks committed by extremist settlers in the West Bank, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says.
“We’re very disturbed by those images and what we’re seeing,” Rubio says. “We’ve asked the Israelis and continue to ask them to crack down on that stuff.”
His comments to reporters come after the widespread dissemination of video showing multiple individuals attacking Heidi Levine, an American photojournalist with the Washington Post. Levine was one of at least two people injured in the Friday incident, which took place as Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians amid clashes.
European diplomats and a French mayor were also attacked in the West Bank in a separate incident, Belgium’s foreign minister has said.
The US State Department, Rubio says, has inquired about the event that included Levine’s attack. Rubio, speaking to reporters before boarding a flight to Uzbekistan, says he expects to hear back from the US Embassy in Jerusalem by Sunday.
Israeli settler extremists in the West Bank have been involved in at least 170 attacks on Palestinians since September 27, around the start of the annual olive harvest, according to Yesh Din, a left-wing Israeli settlements monitoring group.
The Times of Israel Community.