Veteran Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine is brutally attacked by Israeli settlers in Abu Falah (West Bank)

Veteran Washington Post photographer Heidi Levine has four broken vertebrae and a fractured rib after being brutally attacked by Israeli settlers yesterday while covering the Palestinian olive harvest in Abu Falah (West Bank), according to her newspaper.

"Levine, a veteran photojournalist who has covered conflicts in Ukraine and throughout the Middle East, received medical attention in hospitals in Ramallah and Israel for four fractured vertebrae, a broken rib and lacerations throughout her body," the Washington Post detailed today, while a close source assured EFE that Levine will undergo surgery this morning at Beilinson Hospital.

On Friday, while Levine, along with other journalists and activists, was covering the olive harvest in the Palestinian village of Abu Falah, near Ramallah, about 50 settlers - most of them young, dressed in black and masked - began throwing stones with slings and attacking those present with bats.

She fell to the ground and was attacked again and again for about ten minutes, cushioning the blows thanks to her bulletproof vest and her 'Press' helmet, according to the photographer after the assault from a hospital bed in Ramallah.

The settlers stole her cameras, passport, phone and wallet, she said and the Foreign Press Association (FPA) in Israel and Palestine also denounced in a statement, which urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop ignoring settler violence and act to mitigate it.

Soldier shoots a farmer

Israeli soldiers then fired tear gas at the Palestinians, and one of them shot a Palestinian in the leg, according to the account of two activists and a paramedic from the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Army confirmed having fired "at a suspect who was running towards them carrying a sharp object." According to videos of the moment, the "sharp object" is an olive comb.

Already on October 6, armed Israeli settlers beat the French agency AFP photographer, 58-year-old Jaafar Ashtiyeh, while he was covering violence carried out by settlers against Palestinian farmers in Aqraba, the occupied West Bank. Ashtiyeh suffered bruises to his head and torso and was taken by ambulance to a hospital, according to witnesses, his family and other journalists.

Violence and intimidation by settlers is daily in the occupied West Bank - where settlements have multiplied in recent years - and attacks are increasing during the olive harvest season, making it already one of the most violent with at least two Palestinians killed since October.