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Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine said Israelis seizing Palestinian land beat her and stole her camera gear and personal belongings while she was covering events in the occupied West Bank.

Levine rejected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that she had been helped to her feet, saying the attackers lifted her only because they had failed to take everything from her shoulders.

Beating and stolen equipment

Levine told a CNN television program that Israelis seizing Palestinian land attacked her as she was reporting, beating her and taking her camera equipment and other personal possessions.

She said the assailants repeatedly kicked her and struck her with sticks, and that at one point she stopped resisting in an effort to make the attack end. They took her cameras, the bag holding her lenses, her American passport, credit cards, documents and memory cards. A gold necklace her daughter had given her as a birthday present was pulled from her neck.

Levine also said Palestinians who tried to help her were attacked as well.

Responsibility question

Asked about the responsibility of Netanyahu, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, Levine said she has reported on their statements and their visits to the West Bank. "I think the answer is quite clear," she said.

Journalists drop press markings

Levine said journalists are now moving together out of security concerns and have stopped marking their vehicles with press signs in order to protect themselves from attacks by Israelis seizing Palestinian land.

She said that one day before the attack they learned the Israeli army had permitted Palestinian farmers to carry out the olive harvest, and she questioned why the attackers were allowed to gather in the area anyway.

Levine described how the Israelis seizing Palestinian land advanced together with the soldiers as the army moved toward Palestinians. She said she was attacked during that movement and knocked to the ground. She has faced similar attacks during her career, she said, but had not previously encountered the level of violence now seen in the West Bank and Israel.

"I understand Palestinians better"

Levine said the attack gave her a better understanding of what Palestinians go through. "After being attacked, I can really understand what the Palestinian women, children and men I have met have experienced," she said.

The experience became deeply personal for her, Levine said, adding that it strengthened her resolve to keep working to make a difference. She said she is now in a safe place, while the Palestinians she met do not have the same means to keep their families safe and move away from the violence.

Key takeaways

• Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine said Israelis seizing Palestinian land beat and robbed her in the occupied West Bank.
• She rejected Netanyahu's claim that people helped her up, saying they lifted her to take more of her belongings.
• Attackers took her cameras, lenses, passport, credit cards, documents, memory cards and a gold necklace from her daughter.
• Levine said journalists no longer mark their vehicles with press signs because of safety fears.