President Donald Trump's ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has demanded that Israel arrest and prosecute those responsible for an attack on an American journalist in the occupied West Bank, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio called for a crackdown on settler violence. The interventions add to pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government over attacks by Israeli settlers. Huckabee described the assault on Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine as a "despicable act of terror." He added that she had been attacked while working as a journalist and called for those responsible to face lengthy prison sentences.
"Those who attacked unarmed reporter should spend YRS in prison," Huckabee wrote on X on Saturday. "We have called for a full investigation, arrest, and prosecution to the fullest extent of the law to whoever participated in this," Huckabee added. "Attacking a female photographer is despicable act of terror carried out by masked cowards.
Dishonorable act of senseless violence." The Washington Post posted footage of the attack on X. Rubio separately said the U.S. wanted Israel to do more to deter attacks by settlers in the West Bank. "We're very disturbed by those images and what we're seeing," Rubio told reporters, according to .
"We've asked the Israelis and continue to ask them to crack down on that stuff." Rubio said Trump's administration would make its expectations clear to Israeli officials "to prevent that from happening in the future," Al Jazeera reported. "We don’t need that right now; Israel doesn’t need that right now," he added. Newsweek contacted Israeli government officials via online form and Palestinian Authority officials via email on Sunday for comment.
Levine was covering Palestinian farmers harvesting olives near Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah, on Friday when she was attacked by Israeli settlers The veteran American photojournalist suffered serious injuries, including a broken rib, multiple fractured vertebrae and severe damage to a finger that required surgery, her daughter told The . Levine said her attackers kicked her for about 10 minutes as she tried to hold on to her cameras and bag. Her passport, phone, wallet and equipment were also stolen, according to witness accounts reported by Al Jazeera.
Armed with bottles and slingshots, the attackers "were kicking me for like 10 minutes, and I was trying to hold onto my cameras and my bag," Levine said, as per the outlet. Jasper Nathaniel, an independent journalist who witnessed the assault, told Al Jazeera that Levine "was in very, very bad shape. She couldn’t really get up off the ground." The 64-year-old was taken to hospital following the attack in Abu Falah, northeast of Ramallah.
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