“I could hear his screams,” recalled Wessels, describing the moment a veteran Agence France-Presse photographer was beaten with rifle butts by armed Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, as reported by The Washington Post.
According to The Guardian, Ashtiyeh was attacked despite his car being clearly marked with press insignia and wearing visible press identification. Two men jumped on him as he attempted to enter his vehicle, repeatedly striking him with the butts of their rifles and seizing his camera equipment.
The incident took place in plain view of a group of at least a dozen armed Israeli soldiers stationed approximately 500 meters away. Witnesses, family members, and fellow journalists confirmed that the security forces made no attempt to intervene during the beating. Ashtiyeh, who is Palestinian, sustained bruises to his head and torso and was subsequently transported to a hospital in Nablus, where he remained conscious.
Institutional Condemnation and Security Failures
Phil Chetwynd, AFP’s global news director, called it unacceptable that journalists can be assaulted and robbed by armed settlers in front of Israeli security forces who take no action, as noted by The Guardian. Meanwhile, the Foreign Press Association (FPA), which represents international media operating in Israel and the Palestinian territories, issued a statement declaring itself deeply alarmed by the incident and demanding that Israeli authorities investigate why soldiers present at the scene failed to protect clearly identified members of the press.
The UN Human Rights Office documented that Israel was the world’s leading killer of journalists in 2025, accounting for at least 225 deaths among media workers in Lebanon and Gaza. Media rights organizations emphasize that Israeli settlers have increasingly targeted journalists in the West Bank, where authorities have also implemented rising impediments to coverage. Reporters Without Borders noted that Israeli authorities have detained 19 journalists in the West Bank, including one AFP contributor, in the three years following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks.
Violence and land seizures spread over a wider area
The assault on Ashtiyeh coincides with a severe surge in West Bank violence as the annual olive harvest gets underway. Al Jazeera reported that across the occupied territory, harvesters have faced physical assaults involving pepper spray, beatings with sticks and fists, and gunfire. In Beita’s Jabal al-Arma, Israeli settlers opened fire on pickers while forces deployed tear gas directly at them. Alongside physical attacks, armed groups have systematically targeted agricultural infrastructure, stealing harvested olives, ladders, and tarps in locations such as Sinjil.
Simultaneously, Israeli forces have closed off substantial tracts of agricultural land to their Palestinian owners. Al Jazeera documented instances in Deir Istiya, Farkha, Haris, az-Zawiya, and Silwan where soldiers turned farmers away, confiscated identification cards, and seized farming tools. In Beita, the Israeli army halted an ongoing olive harvest after settlers arrived—marking the fourth such shutdown that weekend in an area falling outside official army jurisdiction, according to Haaretz.
This localized aggression forms part of a broader demographic and territorial squeeze across the West Bank, home to approximately 500,000 Israeli settlers living among three million Palestinians. Settlements established in occupied territory remain illegal under international law. In the West Bank’s last entirely Christian village of Taybeh, a designation of the area as a closed military zone by the Israeli army has prevented residents from reaching their groves for the fourth year. Ihab Hassan, a Palestinian Christian activist, told Vatican News that while residents are cut off from their land, Israeli settlers roam freely, contributing to an atmosphere of fear that has prompted many inhabitants to consider emigration.
