A solidarity visit to an olive grove ended with a French mayor beaten and a Belgian car damaged. On Saturday, masked Israeli settlers went after a group near Taybeh, a Palestinian Christian village north-east of Ramallah, in which Belgium’s consul general, diplomats from France and Poland and representatives of the Catholic Church were travelling alongside local farmers.
Bernard Baudoux, who runs the small northern French town of Aulnoye-Aymeries, told Reuters he had come to help with the harvest and was “violently attacked”. Belgian Foreign Minister Maxime Prévot confirmed on X that his staff had escaped unhurt and condemned the assault “in the strongest terms”.
Prévot went further than a routine protest. He tied the violence directly to Israel’s settlement policy, which he called illegal, and said Brussels would keep lobbying for EU sanctions against the attackers and anyone backing them. Brussels had earlier said it would bar settlement-made products from Belgian shelves, including those from the occupied Golan.
Israel’s response came in two tones. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned what he described as Israeli “rioters”, yet suggested the delegation should have coordinated with the army. The military, for its part, spoke of a “severe act of violence”, noting that no soldiers had been present because it had not been informed. An Israeli police inquiry is under way. For the Palestinian leadership, Vice President Hussein al-Sheikh called the incident a small sample of what villagers live through every day.
The attack capped a grim week. On Friday a Washington Post photographer, the American Heidi Levine, ended up in hospital after settlers set upon harvesters. Palestinian health officials count no fewer than four dead and over a hundred injured since the season started in early October.
The timing is politically sensitive: Israelis vote on 27 October, and Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government is already under heavy international pressure over the occupied territories.
