Washington Post photojournalist beaten by settlers slams Netanyahu after surgery on nearly detached finger

Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine on Saturday underwent surgery on her finger, which was nearly detached from her hand after she was beaten by settlers in the West Bank a day earlier, while hitting out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for casting doubt about the attack.

The assault occurred near the village of Abu Falah, north of Ramallah, where some 80 settlers, many of them masked and some of them carrying gas canisters, descended from a hill to the terraced olive grove and began throwing rocks and beating Palestinians and accompanying activists, as well as Levine.

Levine said the perpetrators — armed with bottles and slingshots — “were kicking me for like 10 minutes and I was trying to hold onto my cameras and my bag.” She said her helmet and protective vest, which was marked “PRESS,” likely saved her from more serious injuries.

Levine said the attack ended when her Palestinian colleagues intervened, after which medics rushed her in an ambulance to a clinic in Abu Falah and then to a hospital in Ramallah. She was later moved to Rabin Medical Center in central Israel.

In footage, the photojournalist was seen at one point lying on the ground as masked individuals beat her with sticks before fleeing the scene.

Her daughter, Ashley Milner, told the Associated Press on Saturday that the finger on her mother’s left hand was cut to the bone and a tendon was visible. She said Levine also had a broken rib and multiple broken vertebrae, as well as lacerations across her body.

Severe settler + soldier attack on olive harvesters in Abu Falah. American WaPo journalist Heidi Levine badly wounded. Machine gunfire—at least one Palestinian shot. Tear gas. Soldiers assaulting journalists. pic.twitter.com/He61cNYk0c

— jasper nathaniel (@infinite_jaz) October 16, 2026

Rabin Medical Center, where Levine was being treated, said Saturday afternoon that she was in moderate condition after the surgery.

In an interview from her hospital bed, Levine described the attack to Channel 12 news, saying that after she arrived on the scene she could see masked men with tzitzit, at which point “everyone started to scatter.”

At that point, she said, she was set upon by a group of men, who she said numbered at least 20.

“They threw me to the ground, and they just started kicking me and beating me with sticks,” she said.

“I’ve had two doctors and a nurse suspect that I was actually stabbed in and near my buttocks area, from maybe a knife,” Levine continued. “Other colleagues have told me that they’ve even seen that the settlers are now tying nails onto their sticks.”

“They broke my cameras off my shoulders. They broke the straps. At one point they stood me up on my feet because they weren’t trying to help me; they were actually trying to rob me further,” she added.

Then, she said, the assailants pushed her back down and continued hitting her.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it,” she recalled.

She slammed Netanyahu for suggesting that the settlers were trying to help her up, after his office put out a statement on Friday evening asserting she “was allegedly assaulted” and that the facts of the attack were “unclear and are under investigation.”

“That is such a lie and the biggest insult,” said Levine.

According to her, the Palestinians were trying to push settlers away, and without them, “I probably would have been dead.”

“Mr. prime minister, maybe take another look at those videos, okay? And really look at those videos with your full attention because you’ll see nobody was trying to help me except for my colleagues,” she said.

“I’m not going to let what happened to me yesterday stop me,” Levine stressed. “I am not going to let these thugs, which I’m sorry to say, are, in my words and in my mind and other people’s minds, literally Jewish terrorists, and they are destroying the whole image for everyone in Israel all over the world.”

“Because when anyone hears the word Israeli or the country Israel, the only thing that comes to their mind is these guys who did what they did to me yesterday, and I have been to so many funerals of people who have been killed by them,” she added.

“They stole my camera, my gear, my documents, but they didn’t steal my commitments.”

Earlier, Levine’s daughter expressed concern the injury to her finger may “end her career” as a photojournalist and described the wounds as “life changing.”

“She feels betrayed. It’s difficult for us to see her in this situation, after dozens of years in which she covered wars and conflicts around the world,” Milner told the Kan public broadcaster.

Milner also decried “the slander on social media, where people are claiming that she’s a leftist and deserves what happened to her. My mom just showed up to do her job as a journalist.”

Netanyahu casts doubt

In its statement on early Friday evening, Netanyahu’s office said that “The facts surrounding the confrontation near Abu Falah, during which Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was allegedly assaulted, remain unclear and are under investigation.”

It went on to say that “Reports indicate some 200 Arabs and far-left activists confronted approximately 40 Israeli youths. Footage shows masked individuals on both sides hurling objects, amid reports of fireworks fired at Jewish youths. Other footage appears to show Levine knocked down and immediately helped to her feet by the same unidentified individual. The investigation must establish the facts, including who initiated the violence.”

“We will not allow disputed incidents to be exploited to demonize the hundreds of thousands of law-abiding Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria,” the statement concluded. “The facts must determine the conclusions. Not the headlines.”

On Saturday evening, in his first public response, Netanyahu again cast doubt on the specifics of the assault on Levine, despite clear video footage documenting the attack, while simultaneously condemning settler violence as a “scourge” that must be eradicated.

Masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villagers on Friday, setting olive groves on fire and slinging rocks.

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Caught in the attack was Post photographer Heidi Levine. “They just kept kicking me and kicking me, like probably 50 times,” Levine said. https://t.co/9YLUuU9ktP pic.twitter.com/0SrFcIW4as

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) October 16, 2026

Netanyahu told i24NEWS that reports of such attacks sometimes turn out to be inaccurate. “Many times we’ve been told that certain things happened, and then it turns out that things weren’t exactly as they were presented,” he said.

When the interviewer pushed back, pointing to footage of the assault and Levine’s own testimony, Netanyahu responded, “I don’t know. We’re checking it out.”

Netanyahu condemned extremist settler violence in general, saying, “I am not willing to accept groups taking the law into their own hands,” and adding, “I brought the Shin Bet in there. We will uproot this scourge.”

He also said that such violence “tarnishes a huge public of settlers who are law-abiding, who are among the most moral people we have.”

US politicians condemn ‘unconscionable’ attack

The attack on Levine was denounced by President Isaac Herzog, whose office said he spoke with her on Saturday.

“I strongly denounce this appalling and shocking phenomenon of violence, both the terrible attack you underwent and additional severe cases like what happened today in Taybeh,” Herzog’s office quoted him as telling Levine. “The despicable conduct of these criminals does not represent the citizens or values of the State of Israel.”

He also called for law enforcement “to act with an iron hand against any manifestation of violence.”

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee described the attack on Levine as a “despicable act of terror” and declared that those responsible should spend years in prison.

Without specifically blaming extremist settlers, Huckabee said the details of the incident are under investigation.

“Attacking a female photographer is [a] despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards. Dishonorable act of senseless violence,” he wrote on X.

Heidi Levine, photojournalist for @wapo suffered serious injuries from vicious & cowardly attack. Heidi is US Citizen, clear ID as journalist. Details of who under investigation, but those who attacked unarmed reporter should spend YRS in prison. We have called for a full…

— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) October 17, 2026

The assault was also widely condemned by numerous Democratic lawmakers, with US Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland calling it “unconscionable and a moment of reckoning for the world.”

“Are we going to tolerate accelerating vigilante violence against Palestinian civilians and foreign observers by right-wing vigilantes who operate with government protection?” Raskin asked on X.

“Reports that this was a coordinated attack are incredibly concerning, as are reports that IDF soldiers did not intervene,” said New Jersey Senator Andy Kim. “I will continue to call for an investigation and accountability.”

“She said attackers picked her up, then threw her down again and kept kicking,” wrote progressive California Representative Ro Khanna, who said he was detained by armed settlers in the West Bank earlier this year. Khanna charged that settlers “operate with impunity,” adding: “We need to cut off aid to Israel that is used to fund settler activity, and stop the sales of these weapons.”

“This must be a wakeup call,” Texas Representative Joaquin Castro, another Democrat, wrote on X. “Attacks like this one pave the way for the violent land grabs taking place throughout the West Bank and push us further away from peace.”

Also condemning the attack was Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter, who told CNN late Friday that those carrying out violence in the West Bank must be held accountable for their actions.

“Those perpetrating the violence have to be brought to justice,” Leiter said, adding that if Israel “has not yet reached a passing grade on bringing Jewish vigilantes to justice then we’ve got to do a better job, and I’m convinced that we are going to do it.”

Leiter claimed he has heard in government meetings Netanyahu speaking “emphatically about putting a stop to this.”

The attack on Abu Falah was one of several assaults on Palestinian villages across the West Bank on Friday, with perpetrators setting fire to cars and trees and beating residents.

Settler violence against Palestinians has soared this year and spiked further in the weeks leading up to Israel’s October 27 election. Critics accuse the government of condoning and even encouraging the violence, which has led to the displacement of dozens of Palestinian families.

Netanyahu has downplayed the near-daily attacks as the work of a small number of delinquents, not from the West Bank, though that assessment has been contradicted by security sources.

The IDF also faces mounting criticism for troops often standing by while attacks unfold, actively participating or failing to prosecute those responsible.