Video analysis and eyewitness accounts of the Oct. 16 assault on Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine have put Israeli forces’ response and the sequence of violence near Abu Falah under scrutiny.
Al Jazeera said its data team compared more than 20 videos and photographs, placing the assault about 455 meters southwest of a hilltop outpost. Its reconstruction also puts Israeli military vehicles in the area before Levine was attacked. The distance and timing are findings from Al Jazeera’s analysis.
Reuters journalists reporting from the scene described roughly 80 masked settlers moving toward olive harvesters. They said trees were set alight and rocks were thrown; Palestinians later threw stones, Reuters reported. The agency added that one of its photographers saw an armed settler discharge a firearm.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said troops received a report of a violent confrontation and used crowd-dispersal measures. An IDF spokesperson told The Washington Post that soldiers did not see Levine being assaulted. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the confrontation’s facts remained unclear and under investigation. It cited reports of about 200 Arabs and left-wing activists confronting roughly 40 Israeli youths.
The Washington Post said footage shows Levine being struck while on the ground; her vest identified her as press. The paper reported four broken vertebrae and a hand injury that required surgery. EconoTimes previously reported Levine’s plan to return to work after the assault.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) documented 199 settler attacks linked to the olive harvest from Sept. 1 through Oct. 12, before the Abu Falah incident. OCHA recorded 185 such attacks during all of 2025 and said the harvest supports an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Palestinian families. Violence, damaged trees and limits on access to farmland threaten those families’ income.
Israel Police said it arrested 10 suspects on Oct. 19 in a pre-dawn operation following weekend violence. The release did not say whether any suspects were connected to Levine’s assault.
