Israel: 10 arrests over settler attacks on European diplomats and an American photojournalist in the West Bank

Israeli police arrested ten suspects over the weekend’s attacks in the West Bank, after violent assaults by groups of settlers on Palestinians, on an American photojournalist and on a convoy of European diplomats. Israel Police announced on Monday, October 19 that the operation, code-named “Olive Leaf”, took place in the Binyamin area and that the suspects, believed to be linked to the incidents, were taken into custody as part of the investigation.

According to the police, officers raided the area before dawn in cooperation with the Shin Bet internal security service, to locate people suspected of taking part in the violence and of breaching an order by a military commander that had declared the area a closed military zone. “Items linking the suspects to the offences were seized, along with several vehicles,” the statement said.

The attacks

On Friday a group of masked Israelis attacked Palestinians who were picking olives, injuring several of them and Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine. On Saturday a convoy carrying representatives of France, Belgium and Poland was attacked by masked men near the Palestinian village of Taybeh, as European officials and the Israeli army confirmed. The army said the convoy had not been coordinated with it, without disputing that it was attacked by settlers, while the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for caution before conclusions are drawn.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee called the arrests a “very positive development” toward identifying and punishing those who seriously attacked and struck Heidi Levine, “an unarmed journalist”; over the weekend he had spoken of a “terrorist act by masked cowards.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio also condemned the attack, saying President Trump does not want a crisis in the West Bank and that Washington has asked Israel to crack down on such incidents, which hit Palestinians and foreign nationals alike.

The violence did not stop on Monday: two Palestinians were injured in the villages of Turmus Ayya and Deir Abu Mash’al, north-west of Ramallah, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. The West Bank is at the centre of intense international pressure on Israel, which has also followed the preliminary approval in the Knesset of a bill to impose Israeli sovereignty on the territory.