Rubio: America wants Israel to "deter" settler violence in the West Bank

Listen to the article. The audio text is automated, generated by an automated system

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed on Saturday his country's alarm over the scenes of an attack on an American photojournalist in the West Bank, calling on Israel to "firmly confront" the violence.

“We are deeply disturbed by these images and the scenes we see,” Rubio said, after Heidi Levin, an experienced photojournalist at the Washington Post, was injured on Friday by Israeli settlers who beat her while she was covering acts of violence targeting Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank.

The US Secretary of State added that the United States wants Israel to do more to deter attacks carried out by settlers in the West Bank. “We are very concerned about these images and what we see,” Rubio said. “We have asked the Israelis, and we continue to ask them, to take measures to deter these things.”

Rubio said that the US State Department inquired about the incident that included the assault on Levine. He added, in statements to journalists before boarding a plane bound for Uzbekistan, that he expected to receive a response from the US Embassy in Jerusalem by Sunday.

For his part, the US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, on Saturday called on the Israeli authorities to pursue those responsible for the "terrorist act" that targeted Levin and imprison them.

Huckabee wrote on the

Huckabee did not mention the settlers as the aggressors. The US ambassador had previously criticized attacks targeting Americans that were attributed to settlers.

He said in his post: “The identity of those responsible is still under investigation, but those who attacked an unarmed journalist should spend years in prison.”

He added, "We called for a comprehensive investigation, and to arrest and prosecute everyone who participated in this attack to the fullest extent of the law."

Heidi Levin, an experienced photojournalist, was injured on Friday by Israeli settlers who beat her while she was covering acts of violence targeting Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank, according to her personal testimony and the statements of witnesses and doctors.

She was taken to hospital after suffering fractures in her back vertebrae, and it was reported on Saturday that her condition was moderate.

Levin was covering the olive harvest season near the towns of Turmus Aya and Khirbet Abu Falah.

But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday questioned the identity of those responsible for the attack, considering that Palestinians or activists from the "far left" might be behind it, according to his claim.