On Saturday, Netanyahu's office issued a statement urging caution in drawing conclusions from accounts of masked Israelis beating European diplomats in Samaria, while the prime minister stated that violence directed at diplomatic personnel was unacceptable regardless of the circumstances. The office noted that the weight of any allegation should be matched by the strength of the evidence put forward to support it.
A statement from Netanyahu's office laid out the details that had been established up to that point. No prior coordination with the Israel Defense Forces — a step that protocols treat as standard practice for safeguarding visitors moving through the area around Taybeh, a Palestinian town northeast of Ramallah — had been arranged before the diplomatic delegation made its trip there.
One of the delegation's members was Bernard Baudoux, a mayor whose party affiliation runs with the French Communist Party and who had received an administrative order requiring him to remove a Palestinian flag he had displayed above his town hall, according to the prime minister's office statement.
Video of people in masks approaching a diplomatic vehicle captures only a fragment of what took place, leaving questions of sequence and personal accountability to an ongoing inquiry. Forensic teams and police have launched an investigation into the matter, working to determine who bears responsibility.
The Prime Minister's Office raised questions about what it described as an organised effort to damage the reputations of Israel and Jewish residents of the West Bank during the annual olive harvest, pointing to media reports published before investigations had concluded — with an official noting that, by the time any evidence is fully assessed, the reputational harm from premature judgements may already have taken hold. The Prime Minister's Office urged the public and journalists alike to insist on documented proof before drawing conclusions, cautioning against allowing unverified allegations to be treated as grounds for condemning the Jewish population living in Judea and Samaria.
In a separate statement, the IDF denounced the assault on the envoys, noting that those responsible were identified as Israeli nationals. According to a statement from the military, troops have been deployed alongside law enforcement personnel and investigators working in the zone, where the process of gathering evidence and witness accounts is under way.
No prior arrangement with the IDF had been made before the delegation arrived. A preliminary review found no military personnel from the force had been stationed at the location when the attack took place, and a full examination of the surrounding circumstances is under way.
Sa'ar, in his capacity as Foreign Minister, added his voice to the condemnation, with his ministry already in direct contact with ambassadors from the affected countries to support law enforcement efforts aimed at identifying those responsible and holding them accountable. Sa'ar stated on the record that the military had not been brought into the planning of the visit beforehand.
On Saturday evening, Maxime Prévot — holding the posts of Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister for Belgium — issued a formal condemnation of the assault carried out by masked individuals in the West Bank village of Taybeh, where those targeted included Palestinians, the Belgian Consul General, diplomats from France and Poland, and representatives of the Catholic Church. According to the statement, a mayor in France was among those physically attacked, and a vehicle belonging to a Belgian delegation sustained damage.
Prévot stated that such violence is a daily reality for Palestinians, and that those covering it — journalists and diplomats alike — have been targeted by Israeli settlers.
On Saturday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog reached out by telephone to Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine, aged 63, a day after she sustained injuries during an incident involving a group of people in the Binyamin area of the West Bank. Following the assault, she received hospital care and underwent a hand operation at Rabin Medical Center in Petach Tikvah.
In a statement describing the conversation, Herzog — speaking in his capacity as head of state — condemned the violence directed at her alongside other incidents, including one that had occurred that day in Taybeh, and conveyed both his personal regret over what she had endured and an apology, noting that the matter had stayed with him through the Shabbat period. He described those behind the attack as acting in ways that do not reflect the nation's people or its core values, and called on law enforcement to identify and prosecute the perpetrators.
The Prime Minister's Office, responding on Friday to the account given by the American newspaper's executive editor, put forward questions about whether Israelis or Palestinians bore responsibility for the attack on Levine, stopping short of accepting the settler attribution. Her work as a photojournalist has taken her across Israel and the broader Middle East over a career spanning thirty years.
A journalist sustained an injury near Khirbet Abu Falah — a Palestinian village roughly 16 miles north of Ramallah — according to a statement from the IDF, which described the incident as occurring during a confrontation in the area. Officers who reached the location moved to break up the altercation by deploying crowd-control equipment.
Troops at a separate site discharged rounds into the air as an initial measure before directing fire at an individual who advanced on them carrying a bladed object and was assessed to pose a threat. Figures released by the Prime Minister's Office placed the gathering at approximately 200 Arab and activist participants on one side, with around 40 young Israelis on the other; recorded video showed masked individuals from both groups hurling objects, while separate accounts reported fireworks directed toward the Jewish youths.
Video recorded separately shows Levine going down before a person whose identity has not been established pulled her back onto her feet.
A situational assessment was convened by Moshe Pinchi, who commands the Israel Police Judea and Samaria District at the rank of Chief Superintendent, bringing together the district's senior command staff alongside other security personnel to review both incidents from the weekend. Investigators from the Judea and Samaria District Central Unit have been assigned to look into both the attack on Levine and a separate incident involving European diplomats.
Detectives drawn from multiple jurisdictions within the district have been conducting a sustained, wide-ranging inquiry, with investigative activity continuing through all hours. Extra staffing has been brought into the investigative units, with the full range of available police assets directed toward identifying those behind the incident.
