Seven masked Israeli settlers attacked a convoy carrying European diplomats in the West Bank village of Taybeh on Saturday, surrounding their vehicles on quad bikes, demanding to see their identification documents and smashing the window of a Belgian consulate car — a day after the same olive harvest season left a Washington Post photographer hospitalised with a broken vertebra.
The delegation included diplomats from France, Belgium and Poland who had come to Taybeh, a mostly Christian Palestinian village about 12 kilometres northeast of Ramallah, to take part in the annual olive harvest. Among them were the French consul in Jerusalem, Belgium’s consul general Anick Van Calster, and Bernard Baudoux, the mayor of the French town of Aulnoye-Aymeries, who was assaulted in the attack.
According to Israeli Army Radio and footage published by the station, the seven masked men arrived on all-terrain vehicles, closed in on the diplomatic cars with clubs in their hands, pelted them with stones and shattered the window of the Belgian consulate vehicle. One video frame shows a diplomat lying on the ground.
Amit Orfali, an Israeli activist who reached the scene with the diplomats, described what he saw: “We arrived at the scene, and seven masked settlers armed with clubs surrounded our vehicles and beat them, threatened to kill us and demanded to see our IDs.” He said he had come after Palestinians reported that settlers were stealing sacks of harvested olives from them.
A witness who was with the group wrote that she had updated the Israeli army in real time as the attack unfolded. “They neither arrived nor responded,” she said. The Israel Defense Forces later said that, according to a preliminary inquiry, no soldiers were present at the scene, and that the diplomats’ visit had not been coordinated with the military — a coordination step it called important for preventing incidents of this kind.
Israel Police said its Binyamin station in the West Bank had opened an investigation after the footage circulated online, and that a report had been forwarded to the Foreign Ministry to locate the victims, collect testimony and identify the suspects. “Upon receiving the footage, police opened an investigation, and the Foreign Ministry was also notified to locate the victims, collect testimony, and identify the suspects so they can be brought to justice,” the police said. “Israel Police condemns violence of any kind.”
Belgium’s foreign minister, Maxime Prévot, condemned the attack in the strongest terms. “I condemn in the strongest terms the attack by masked settlers in Taybeh, in the occupied West Bank, against Palestinians, our Consul General, French and Polish diplomats as well as catholic representatives. A French mayor was assaulted and a Belgian vehicle damaged,” he said, adding that “as the occupying power, Israeli authorities must protect Palestinians, ensure the safety of diplomats and journalists, and bring those responsible to justice. Impunity for violent settlers must end.”
“Violence cannot be separated from Israel’s illegal settlement policy,” Prévot continued. “Belgium will continue to press for EU sanctions against those responsible for this violence and those who support them.”
The attack is part of a surge of settler violence across the West Bank during this year’s olive harvest. On Friday, settlers beat Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine in the nearby village of Abu Falah; she underwent surgery on her hand and is being treated for a broken vertebra. Israel’s military is expected to reinforce its West Bank division with additional combat troops in response to the violence.
The timing also puts European capitals in an uncomfortable spot. On Friday, the European Council formally urged Israel to reverse its settlement expansion and warned businesses and banks against bidding in the controversial E1 settlement project near Jerusalem. Diplomats being beaten in the field — rather than protected by the occupying power — turns an abstract condemnation into a personal one. For an international reader, the stakes are straightforward: diplomatic immunity is one of the oldest rules in international relations, and attacking diplomats of three EU member states during an EU-backed policy debate over settlements is the kind of incident that can turn communiqués into sanctions lists.
Taybeh itself is an unlikely flashpoint for global attention. It is the last majority-Christian village in the West Bank, identified with the biblical town of Ephraim, and its olive groves are some of the oldest in the territory. For the farmers there, the harvest is both a livelihood and a season of dread — and this year, the violence followed the diplomats into the groves.
