Washington Post photographer beaten by settlers in West Bank

Heidi Levine’s broken ribs and fractured vertebrae are what one weekend of violence in the West Bank left her with when she flew home Friday. Levine, a photographer for The Washington Post, was beaten by a crowd of young male settlers while documenting an attack during the annual olive harvest, a season when Palestinians and the people who come to stand beside them have long faced danger in the occupied territory. Her injuries tell one part of a story that has shaken families on both sides of the region’s conflicts.

The next day, masked settlers attacked a group of European diplomats who had traveled to the area for the same reason.

Additional reference context is available at https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2026/10/19/saudi-arabia-israel-iran-mideast-news/.

Israeli police said Monday they had arrested 10 suspects after the string of attacks, which drew heavy criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Police did not identify who carried out the beatings. Rights groups say Palestinians have endured surging attacks that rarely end in arrest or punishment. Netanyahu’s main rival in the Oct. 27 elections, Gadi Eisenkot, called the violence “Jewish terror,” writing on X that “a handful of criminals is burning up the last shreds of legitimacy left to the state of Israel.”

Meanwhile, families in Gaza were waiting for goods that had stopped moving. No commercial trucks have entered the territory since Wednesday, cutting off the flow of food and other necessities. Israel’s military said Monday it would resume coordinating commercial truck entries, but warned that merchants’ licenses would be revoked if future reports showed them paying taxes to Hamas. COGAT, the Israeli military body that oversees humanitarian affairs in Gaza, cited disagreements between Hamas and the merchants over taxes and said it was communicating a decision made by the merchants themselves. Truckers in Gaza said Israel was using the disagreement as a pretext to fight Hamas’ taxation efforts, and officials in Gaza called the money a “donation” to pay civil servants rather than a tax. COGAT said Monday that Hamas had withdrawn its demands.

The mourning continued too. Three separate Israeli strikes hit Gaza City, killing at least two people according to Shifa Hospital, and two 17-year-olds were killed in another strike on Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to Nasser Hospital. The Israeli military said it struck Hamas fighters in each of the Gaza City attacks and did not comment on the other strike. More than a year after Israel and Hamas struck a ceasefire deal, deadly attacks on the enclave continue.

In Saudi Arabia, the executions of two Bangladeshi nationals, a man and a woman, convicted of “indecent acts” in a mosque in the holy city of Mecca, drew a pointed response from their home country. Bangladesh said it was not informed before the sentences were carried out and has sought information from Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Interior Ministry said the two were executed because of “the gravity and seriousness of their actions in violating the sanctity of both time and place,” without elaborating. The news was among the day’s leading developments, alongside the Houthi attacks and the Iranian statements, in coverage compiled by the Sun Sentinel.

In Yemen, families connected to the Saudi-backed government absorbed one of the war’s deadliest blows in years. Iran-backed Houthi rebels killed at least 53 soldiers in ballistic missile strikes on the al-Alam military camp and wounded 200 recruits, according to the Shabwa provincial government. It was one of the deadliest attacks on the government’s forces since the rebels shattered a 2022 ceasefire in Yemen’s civil war. The Houthis also claimed Monday to have carried out six military operations targeting oil infrastructure, airports and military sites across Saudi Arabia. Saudi authorities say recent Houthi missile and drone attacks have killed 19 people and injured more than 350 others, and the Saudi Civil Defense issued more danger alerts across parts of the kingdom Monday.

In Tehran, an adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei warned that Iran would respond forcefully to any renewed U.S. attack. Conservative politician Mohammad Mokhber said Iran would strike “nine countries” if Iranian bases or “petrochemical” facilities were struck again; his recorded comments, posted by the semiofficial Tasnim news agency, did not name the countries.

Iran also moved diplomatically. Gen. Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, called for stronger cooperation with Russia after meeting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, saying it could include joint economic projects such as completing transportation corridors. Lavrov condemned the U.S.-Israeli military attacks on Iran as illegal. President Masoud Pezeshkian, meeting Lavrov the same day, said Iran has no “fundamental disagreements” with its neighbors and is willing to resolve tensions through dialogue, blaming U.S. interference and the presence of American military bases in neighboring countries for instability. Iran also summoned Germany’s ambassador over what it called baseless accusations, hours after Germany summoned Iran’s ambassador in Berlin following a court sentence for two men with ties to Iran’s intelligence service who plotted to kill the leader of a Jewish organization in Germany.

In London, Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband warned companies they could be violating international law by helping build new Israeli settlements in the West Bank, where construction has surged under Netanyahu’s government. He said the E1 settlement project, which would cut the West Bank in two, “is a direct threat to the prospect of a two-state solution.” The U.K. has banned trade with the settlements and created a way to sanction companies that service them. Israel’s top diplomat responded that his country would not be “intimidated by threats.”

Whether the 10 arrests in the West Bank lead to actual punishment, and whether Gaza’s trucks roll again without new conditions attached, is what families across the region will be watching in the days ahead.