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Illustrative image: An aerial view of Qalqilya in the West Bank provides regional context as US diplomats visit Taybeh following attacks involving European officials and a journalist, while France calls for arrests over the incidents.
US Diplomats Visit West Bank Village After Settler Attacks on Officials
TAYBEH, West Bank — October 18, 2026
US diplomats visited the Palestinian village of Taybeh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Sunday, a day after masked Israeli settlers attacked European diplomats, a French mayor and Palestinian civilians during the olive harvest. The visit also followed a separate assault on an American photojournalist covering olive picking in another part of the territory.
Riley Barnes, the US assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, joined Brian Burch, the US ambassador to the Holy See, and other diplomats at the Latin Convent church in Taybeh. The delegation was expected to meet members of the village's Christian community.
The Saturday attack involved Belgian, French and Polish diplomats, along with a French mayor and Palestinian civilians, according to the report. On Friday, Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine was taken to hospital after being assaulted while documenting a Palestinian olive harvest near another West Bank village.
The diplomatic visit took place amid growing attention to violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and foreign visitors. It also came as US President Donald Trump publicly backed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of Israel's parliamentary election scheduled for October 27.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee attended a conference for Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Sunday. Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and longtime supporter of Israel, had previously called on X for those responsible for attacking Levine, a US citizen, to be jailed.
Netanyahu has taken a more cautious public position on the recent incidents. While Israel's foreign minister, Gideon Saar, and the Israeli military blamed Israeli rioters for the attack on the diplomats, Netanyahu said the group had entered a sensitive area with a history of confrontations without first coordinating with the military. He also said the circumstances surrounding the assault on Levine remained unclear.
Trump has opposed Israeli annexation of the West Bank, but his administration has faced criticism over its limited pressure on Netanyahu's right-wing government to change its approach to settlements. The United Nations and most countries consider Israeli settlements in the territory illegal under international law, while Israel disputes this position and describes the territory as disputed.
France called on Israeli authorities to arrest those responsible for Saturday's attack and take action against criminal violence in the West Bank. By Sunday, however, Israeli authorities had not announced any arrests linked to either of the two recent incidents.
The West Bank is home to about 500,000 Israeli settlers and at least 3 million Palestinians. According to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, at least 170 settler attacks against Palestinians had been recorded since September 27. Journalists, activists and foreign observers have also faced attacks, while prosecutions of Israeli settlers remain rare.
Further violence was reported on Sunday near Salfit, a Palestinian town in the West Bank. Journalists witnessed at least 10 masked people dressed in black throwing rocks at Palestinians and activists harvesting olives, forcing the farmers to flee. Israeli border police were present and fired tear gas towards nearby hills.
The visit to Taybeh brought US diplomats to a community affected by the wider tensions surrounding settler violence. Calls for arrests and accountability continued, but no arrests had been announced in connection with the two latest incidents by Sunday.
