Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was reportedly wounded on Friday during a clash between extremist settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank near Abu Falah. Police said they opened an investigation after receiving an IDF report of the violence.
Levine said from a hospital bed that she was kicked about 50 times. She said she was wearing a black jacket and helmet and that, without them, she probably would not be alive. She also said that after about 10 minutes, people tried to force her to get up, pushed her back to the ground and kept kicking her while she tried to hold on to her cameras and side bag.
Footage seen by The Jerusalem Post appears to show Levine kneeling on a path in a press jacket and helmet while colleagues run over to carry her to safety. The image gives the episode its weight: a journalist in visible press gear being dragged out of a confrontation that turned physical fast enough to leave her hospitalized.
But the account of who started it remains contested. Palestinian media reported that Levine was beaten and suffered fractures and cuts in violence near Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah. The Mateh Binyamin Regional Council said the Palestinian Authority led hundreds of anarchists and terrorists into a direct confrontation with Israelis under the cover of the olive harvest, and that footage showed people launching fireworks and hurling stones while Border Police later dispersed the clashes.
The incident was part of four episodes of nationalist-motivated violence and clashes between Israelis and Palestinians reported overnight and on Friday morning across the West Bank, including in Burin, Burqa, Turmus Ayya and the Wadi al-Sheikh area of Beit Ummar. The Palestinian Red Crescent said two wounded Palestinians, a 63-year-old woman and a 40-year-old man, were treated and taken to hospital, and another Palestinian was reportedly shot in the knee.
Police have now taken the first formal step by opening an investigation, but the central question is still whether the Abu Falah confrontation began as a Palestinian protest, a settler attack or something that quickly spiraled beyond either side’s account. Until that is established, Levine’s injuries stand as the clearest fact in a night of conflicting claims and widening unrest.
