Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinians and European Officials in West Bank

Masked Israeli settlers carried out an attack in a Palestinian town where residents and European diplomats were participating in the olive harvest on Saturday, a day after a similar assault injured several Palestinians and a U.S. journalist in the occupied West Bank. The episode took place in Taybeh, a Christian town north of Jerusalem, when Palestinians were gathering olives alongside French, Polish and Belgian diplomats who were in attendance to show solidarity, Palestinian residents, local officials and witnesses said. The extremists beat a Palestinian teenager, pushed an older woman and smashed the window of a Belgian diplomatic vehicle, said Suleiman Khourieh, the mayor of Taybeh. They also scuffled with the visiting mayor of a French town that had recently become a “sister city” of Taybeh, he said. “This violence shows nobody is protected — not Palestinians, not journalists and not diplomats,” Mr. Khourieh said. Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister, said in a statement that Bernard Baudoux, the mayor of Aulnoye-Aymeries in the country’s north, was “violently assaulted by extremist settlers in the West Bank.” He called on Israel to “put an end to this criminal violence.” On Friday, Israeli settlers beat a group of Palestinians and Heidi Levine , a longtime photographer for the Washington Post, with bats and sticks. Ms. Levine, 63, was in moderate condition after undergoing surgery on Saturday, according to Beilinson Hospital in central Israel. She suffered a broken rib and lacerations on her legs, rear end and hip, as well as a serious cut on her left hand, according to her family. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in . Want all of The Times? Subscribe .