{"id":2922,"date":"2026-10-18T22:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T17:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2922"},"modified":"2026-10-18T22:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T17:00:19","slug":"us-officials-visit-palestinian-village-after-settler-attacks-on-diplomats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/?p=2922","title":{"rendered":"US officials visit Palestinian village after settler attacks on diplomats"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

US diplomats visited a Christian Palestinian town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday following attacks by militant Israeli settlers on European diplomats <\/u>and an American photojournalist in the \u200bprevious two days.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Riley Barnes, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, \u200cBrian Burch, US ambassador to the Holy See, and a number of other diplomats visited the Latin Convent church and were expected to meet with members of the Christian community in Taybeh.<\/p>\n

Belgian, French and Polish diplomats, along with a \u200bFrench mayor and Palestinian civilians, had been attacked near Taybeh on Saturday by masked Israeli \u200bsettlers.<\/p>\n

The previous day, Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was taken to hospital after being assaulted while covering a \u2060Palestinian olive harvest near another West Bank village.<\/p>\n

The diplomats\u2019 visit coincided with US President Donald Trump endorsing his ally, Prime \u200bMinister Benjamin Netanyahu, for Israel\u2019s parliamentary election on October 27.<\/p>\n

<\/a>Netanyahu circumspect on settler violence<\/h3>\n

Trump has this year \u200bexpressed his opposition to settlement expansion, but his administration has put little pressure on Netanyahu\u2019s right-wing, pro-settler government to change its policy.<\/p>\n

UN bodies and most countries deem the settlements illegal under international law, but Israel rejects this, viewing the territory \u200bas disputed rather than occupied.<\/p>\n

While Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar and the Israeli military (IDF) both blamed \u201cIsraeli rioters\u201d \u200bfor the attack on the diplomats, Netanyahu, whose coalition is projected to lose its governing majority, has been more \u200ccircumspect.<\/p>\n

He has \u2060said the diplomats entered a \u201csensitive area with a history of confrontations without prior coordination with the IDF\u201d, and that the facts of the attack on Levine are \u201cunclear\u201d.<\/p>\n

France urged Israeli authorities to arrest Saturday\u2019s attackers and to end criminal violence in the West Bank, but by Sunday there was no announcement from Israeli authorities \u200bof any arrests in \u200beither of the two \u2060latest incidents.<\/p>\n

The West Bank is home to some 500,000 settlers and at least 3 million Palestinians.<\/p>\n

Settler attacks on the Palestinians are surging, with at least \u200b170 since September 27, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights \u200bgroup. Journalists, activists \u2060and foreign observers have also been targeted.<\/p>\n

Yet prosecutions of Israeli settlers are rare.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Reuters<\/em> saw a group of at least 10 settlers, masked and dressed in black, hurling rocks at Palestinians and activists harvesting \u2060olives near \u200bthe Palestinian West Bank town of Salfit, prompting the farmers \u200bto flee.<\/p>\n

Israeli border police were in the area and shot tear gas towards the hills.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

US diplomats visited a Christian Palestinian town in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday following attacks by militant Israeli settlers on European diplomats and an American photojournalist in the \u200bprevious two days. Riley Barnes, assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, \u200cBrian Burch, US ambassador to the Holy See, and a number of other diplomats visited the Latin Convent church and were expected to meet with members of the Christian community in Taybeh. Belgian, French and Polish diplomats, along with a \u200bFrench mayor and Palestinian civilians, had…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"gutentor_comment":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2922\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipp-news.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}