US ambassador urges Israel to prosecute attackers of American journalist

United States Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee has demanded Israel prosecute and jail those responsible for the attack on American journalist Heidi Levine in the occupied West Bank, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said Washington wants Israel to do more to deter settler attacks.

“Attacking a female photographer is a despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards,” Huckabee wrote on X on Saturday.

“Those who attacked unarmed reporter should spend YRS in prison,” he added. “We have called for a full investigation, arrest, and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law to whoever participated in this.”

Rubio said on Saturday that the US State Department had inquired about the attack on Levine and that he expected to hear back from the US embassy in Jerusalem by Sunday.

“We’re very disturbed by those images and what we’re seeing,” he told reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. “We’ve asked the Israelis and continue to ask them to crack down on that stuff.”

⁠Rubio’s comments to reporters came after the widespread dissemination of video showing settlers attacking Levine, a photojournalist with The Washington Post.

Rubio said the administration of US President Donald Trump would communicate its expectations to the Israelis “to prevent that from happening in the future”.

“We don’t need that right now; Israel doesn’t need that right now,” he added.

Levine was covering Palestinians’ annual olive harvest on Friday in the occupied West Bank when Israeli settlers brutally attacked her and several Palestinians.

Israeli settlers stormed the area, beat her and stole her passport, telephone, wallet and equipment, according to witnesses.

The perpetrators, armed with bottles and slingshots, “were kicking me for like 10 minutes, and I was trying to hold onto my cameras and my bag”, Levine said.

Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who witnessed the attack, told Al Jazeera that Levine “was in very, very bad shape. She couldn’t really get up off the ground.”

Levine, 64, was taken to hospital after the assault in Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah.

The American photojournalist underwent surgery on her finger, which was nearly detached from her hand, and was left with a broken rib and multiple broken vertebrae, as well as lacerations, her daughter told The Associated Press news agency.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who wants to shore up his pro-settlement right-wing base ahead of closely fought October 27 elections, claimed on Friday that Palestinians or “far-left” activists may have been responsible for the attack on Levine and other Palestinians.

Meanwhile, Ambassador Huckabee, a staunch ally of Israel who has sharply criticised Israeli settler attacks against Americans, did not identify the culprits as settlers after Netanyahu tried to sow doubt as to their identity.

The Trump-appointed ambassador met Palestinian-Americans in the occupied West Bank town of Turmus Aya in September to hear locals’ testimony about their experiences with pogroms. In August, Huckabee called a days-long Israeli settler siege an “act of terror”.

The State Department criticised Friday’s attack using a cautious tone on Levine’s beating, stating condemnation of “criminal violence by any party”.

Israeli settlers have been involved in at least 170 pogroms against Palestinians since September 27, around the start of the olive harvest, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli group that monitors illegal Israeli settlements.