No arrests announced, 2 days after settlers’ assault on Washington Post photojournalist Levine

Two days after the brutal attack on Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine by settler extremists in the West Bank, the police had yet to announce any arrests in the case as of Sunday afternoon.

There was no immediate police response to requests for comment by The Times of Israel as to the progress of the investigation into the assault, or whether any arrests had been made.

Levine, a veteran photographer who has covered conflict zones around the world, was badly beaten by extremists while covering clashes in the West Bank village of Abu Falah on Friday morning. She was taken first to a Ramallah hospital and later to Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, where she underwent surgery on a severely injured finger and treatment for multiple fractures.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio spoke out on the incident late Saturday, saying that the United States wants Israel to do more to deter attacks committed by extremist settlers in the West Bank, and noting that US President Donald Trump is not “a supporter of what he’s seeing now on television, what he’s reading about… The president doesn’t want to see a crisis in the West Bank. We don’t need that right now. Israel doesn’t need that right now.”

“I saw that,” Rubio said when asked about the attack on Levine. “We’re very disturbed by those images and what we’re seeing,” he added. “We’ve asked the Israelis and continue to ask them to crack down on that stuff.”

Speaking to reporters before boarding a flight to Uzbekistan, Rubio said that the State Department had inquired about the event that included Levine’s attack, and that he expected to hear back from the US Embassy in Jerusalem by Sunday.

“We want to learn all the facts about it, first, obviously,” he went on. “We’ve seen the video, we’ve seen the media reporting about it… If in fact it turns out to be what it appeared it was, we have ways of communicating that to the Israelis about… what we would expect from them to prevent that from happening in the future.”

Post owner Bezos said promising to ensure justice

According to Levine’s daughter Ashley, her mother was first taken to the hospital in Ramallah, but doctors there stated that the injury to her finger, which was cut down to the bone, was too complex for them to deal with, and she was transferred to Rabin Medical Center.

She had surgery on Saturday, including a skin graft, and was also treated for four broken vertebrae and two broken ribs. Ashley said the surgery to Levine’s finger was successful but that a full recovery would take time.

Levine’s son Michael Milner told Kan news on Sunday morning that billionaire Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos was expected to call his mother on Sunday and has said he will take action to ensure the perpetrators are brought to justice.

“We had an opportunity to show governance and to see justice served, but unfortunately they take it and, as usual, throw it in the trash,” Milner told Kan, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cast doubt on the attack.

“The Washington Post staff support my mother. We heard that Jeff Bezos wants to speak to her today, that he is shocked by what happened and promised he would do everything to see justice served in this case,” Milner continued.

“My mother is in a hospital bed, unable to get out of bed. She broke four vertebrae in her back. She almost had a finger amputated. She is mentally shaken by what happened,” said Milner.

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

The assault occurred on Friday near the village of Abu Falah, north of Ramallah, where some 80 settlers, many of them masked and some of them carrying gas canisters, began throwing rocks and beating Palestinians and accompanying activists, as well as Levine.

‘Never an attack like this’

“My mother has been taking pictures for over 40 years, mainly war zones, including Ukraine and Russia, and Afghanistan and Syria. She covered wars between Israel and Iran,” Milner said.

“There were incidents where stones were thrown at her; she was also hit by a rubber bullet. But there was never an attack like this. I never saw her lynched. She was never robbed. This was an extraordinary event.”

Levine, who has covered the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 1990s, has lived in Israel since the 1980s, and her children were all born in the country, although she herself is not an Israeli citizen, her daughter Ashley told The Times of Israel. She declined to say whether Levine is Jewish.

“We’re all very upset, we’re shocked, it’s been really hard to see,” said Ashley, who said she had not watched the entirety of the videos of the assault against her mother.

“I can’t handle it, emotionally; I can’t handle watching my mom getting beaten up,” she said.

Ashley added that Levine “is very shaken” and has “taken the attack very hard.”

Later on Sunday, Democrats leader Yair Golan visited Levine in the hospital.

“I sat across from her, together with [Democrats] MK Gilad Kariv, and heard about the moments of terror. About the awful fear that she wouldn’t come out of there alive. About the blows, the blood, about how they abandoned her wounded in the field,” Golan wrote on X. “A 65-year-old woman, facing a gang of hate-filled Jewish rioters. The heart breaks. And the blood boils.”

Golan said that “this Jewish terror endangers us all,” and vowed that the situation would change after the election next week.

“We will fight Palestinian terror and Jewish terror with determination, with an iron fist and without any concessions,” he said.

No other lawmakers appear to have visited Levine.

Journalist organizations urge IDF action

Two journalist organizations have condemned the attack and called for law enforcement agencies and security forces to crack down on extremist violence.

The Union of Journalists in Israel called on security services to apprehend the assailants “and bring them to justice, as well as to return the equipment that was stolen from Levine during the assault.”

Levine said she had two cameras stolen during the attack, as well as her cellphone and other belongings.

“The Union of Journalists in Israel demands that the IDF take immediate action to ensure that journalists — as well as Israelis in general — can perform their work freely in Judea and Samaria, without the risk of facing attacks of any kind,” the organization said on Friday.

The Foreign Press Association in Israel accused Israeli authorities of failing to tackle extremist settler violence despite the rising violence in the West Bank.

“We call on the army, beginning with the head of Central Command, to stop making excuses and do its job of protecting civilians from these violent mobs,” the FPA said in a statement, also on Friday.

It also called on Netanyahu to “acknowledge the serious problem that he has ignored for too long.”

Netanyahu cast doubt on the attack against Levine despite the clear video footage documenting the assault, telling i24NEWS on Saturday night 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.”

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

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

Earlier Saturday, his office stated: “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.”

Levine denounced Netanyahu for the statement and for asserting she “was allegedly assaulted.”

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

She said 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.