Washington Post Photographer Attacked During Olive Harvest in West Bank

Good Morning, Israel · Saturday, October 17, 2026 · 7:46

Episode 20 · Saturday, October 17, 2026 · 7:46

Washington Post Photographer Attacked During Olive Harvest in West Bank

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1. Washington Post Photographer Attacked During Olive Harvest in West Bank
2. Proofpoint Acquires Israeli Cybersecurity Firm Varonis for $6.3 Billion
3. Italy Investigates Israeli Officials Over Gaza Flotilla Activist Abuse Claims
4. Israeli Rabbi Issues Controversial Fatwa Sanctioning Seizure of Palestinian Olives
5. Hundreds Establish New Settlement Facing Gaza
6. Middle East Faces Pivotal Stage Amidst Intertwined Conflicts and Shifting Alliances

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Maya

A Washington Post photographer is in hospital after Jewish assailants attacked her during the olive harvest in the West Bank.

Daniel

And Prime Minister Netanyahu says those responsible will be held accountable.

Maya

This is Good Morning, Israel from baba News. It's Saturday, October seventeenth. I'm Maya.

Daniel

And I'm Daniel.

Maya

Daniel, who is the photographer, and where did this happen?

Daniel

Her name is Heidi Levine, a veteran photographer working for the Washington Post. She was covering the olive harvest near Khirbet Abu Falah, a Palestinian village northeast of Ramallah, in the West Bank.

Maya

And she was attacked by Israelis.

Daniel

By Jewish assailants, according to the reports. She was hospitalized with injuries and trauma. Her daughter says her camera equipment was stolen.

Maya

Who's condemned it?

Daniel

The I D F condemned the violence, and so did the U S Embassy. And Netanyahu said those responsible will be held accountable.

Maya

He added something else, didn't he?

Daniel

He did. He called for an investigation into who started the clashes in that area. So he wants accountability for the attack, and also the full picture of how the confrontation began.

Maya

Why does a single assault get this kind of attention?

Daniel

Partly because she's a journalist for a major American paper. But mostly because a small extremist fringe is doing real damage to Israel. The army has to divert forces to deal with it, and the country's reputation pays the price.

Maya

What comes next?

Daniel

The police investigation. The test is whether the attackers are identified and charged, quickly.

Maya

Staying with the olive harvest, and a religious ruling that's drawn a lot of anger.

Daniel

Rabbi Dov Lior is a long-time hardline figure, the former chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba, next to Hebron. He's issued a ruling that permits taking Palestinian olive crops in the West Bank, on the grounds that the land belongs to the Jewish people.

Maya

So a rabbi is telling people they can take someone else's harvest.

Daniel

That's the substance of it. And it comes as incidents during the harvest are rising. A Palestinian Authority body that tracks these incidents says it documented thirty-four attacks on farmers, with at least nineteen people hurt.

Maya

Those are their figures.

Daniel

Their figures, yes. But the trend lines up with what we just heard about the attack on Levine.

Maya

How much weight does a ruling like this actually carry?

Daniel

Among most Israelis, very little. Lior speaks for a narrow circle. Inside that circle, though, a ruling like this can give a young extremist the sense that he has permission, and that's the worry.

Maya

Money now, and a very big number for an Israeli tech company.

Daniel

The American cybersecurity firm Proofpoint is buying Varonis Systems, an Israeli company, for about six point three billion dollars.

Maya

What does Varonis do, for those of us who just change our passwords once a year?

Daniel

Eventually. Varonis protects data. It tracks who in an organization can reach sensitive files, and flags it when something looks wrong.

Maya

And the price per share?

Daniel

Shareholders get forty-nine dollars and seventy-five cents for each Varonis share. Both boards have approved it.

Maya

Why does Proofpoint want it?

Daniel

The plan is a single platform for managing critical data and the A I algorithms that run on it. As companies feed more of their data into A I, the question of who can see what gets a lot more urgent.

Maya

When does it close?

Daniel

In the first half of twenty twenty-seven, pending regulatory and shareholder approval.

Maya

So another Israeli company bought for billions. Israeli cybersecurity keeps doing this.

Daniel

It does. The big global players keep coming to Israel to shop.

Maya

To Europe now. Italian prosecutors are investigating senior Israeli officials.

Daniel

Right. The probe names, among others, Defense Minister Israel Katz and the I D F Chief of Staff. It concerns activists on flotillas that sailed toward Gaza.

Maya

And what's the allegation?

Daniel

The activists claim they were abducted and tortured, and that some of them suffered severe abuse. The investigation covers two separate missions.

Maya

Those are their claims.

Daniel

Exactly, claims, and nothing has been proven. Italian prosecutors are asking Israel to cooperate, and similar investigations are reportedly underway elsewhere in Europe.

Maya

Give people the context.

Daniel

These flotillas were trying to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. Israel maintains that blockade to stop weapons reaching Hamas, the terrorist organization that started this war. When the navy stops a ship that's trying to break the blockade, the passengers are detained and deported. Israel's position has always been that this is a lawful security measure, not an abduction.

Maya

So a navy enforcing a blockade against a terrorist organization is being treated as a criminal matter in Rome.

Daniel

That's the core of it. And it's worth noting how rarely these foreign probes go anywhere. What matters next is what Israel says to Italy's request.

Maya

Staying in Rome, the Speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, had something to say to Europe.

Daniel

Speaker Amir Ohana spoke at a Council of Europe meeting there. He took on the accusations being made in Europe that Israel is trying to wipe out the Palestinian people, and he called them an abhorrent lie.

Maya

And he brought a prop.

Daniel

A book that contains the word Jew six million times. One for every Jew murdered in the Holocaust.

Maya

That's a heavy thing to hold up in front of a room of European officials.

Daniel

That was the point. He wanted them to see what the destruction of a people actually looks like, and to see that Israel is doing nothing of the kind.

Maya

What did he ask of them?

Daniel

To stand with Israel against extremism and fundamentalism. He described this as a global fight for freedom and democracy, and said Europe is part of it whether it likes it or not.

Maya

Back to Israel, and a new community on the Gaza border that appeared overnight.

Daniel

More than seven hundred people, including families and soldiers wounded in the war, set up a site they're calling Halutzei Gaza. That means Pioneers of Gaza.

Maya

Who organized it?

Daniel

The Nahala movement. It's a group that promotes new Jewish communities, and it wants Israel to build them inside the Gaza Strip itself.

Maya

So this is a step toward that.

Daniel

That's how they see it. The participants say settling Gaza now is the right answer to the war, and the path to victory. Nahala is demanding the government move this community into the Strip and build more there.

Maya

Any support from the government?

Daniel

Some, from Likud, Netanyahu's party. Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi encouraged further settlement in Gaza.

Maya

And with an election coming in under two weeks, this is going to be a campaign issue.

Daniel

No question. And so far there's no decision by the government to allow building inside Gaza.

Maya

A quick one before we go. Police have made arrests in a killing in the north.

Daniel

Three residents of Turan, an Arab town in the Galilee, are under arrest, two men and a woman. They're suspected of murdering Rabea Obeidat, a thirty-eight-year-old Palestinian man from the Jenin area. His body was found in the Lavi Forest, near the Golani Interchange.

Maya

Do the police have a motive?

Daniel

They suspect a financial dispute over unpaid compensation. Obeidat had worked for a construction company linked to the suspects. The investigation is ongoing, and nobody has been charged yet.

Maya

To watch today, whether police make arrests in the attack on Heidi Levine. Netanyahu promised accountability, and that's the first test of it.

Daniel

Follow Good Morning, Israel so tomorrow's episode is waiting for you.

Maya

See you tomorrow morning.