A masked Israeli settler beat an elderly Palestinian woman unconscious while she was picking olives on her own property.
The unprovoked attack, which was caught on camera by an American journalist, took place on Sunday morning in the Palestinian village of Turmus Ayya, northeast of Ramallah in the West Bank.
Jasper Natheniel said that the Israeli settler knocked the 55-year-old Palestinian woman unconscious with a stick before hitting her again as she fell to the ground.
In the video, which has gone viral, the woman is seen bleeding as she is carried into a vehicle to be taken to a hospital, according to a report by Al Arabiya news website.
Nathaniel was accompanying a group of Palestinians harvesting olives, alongside activists who had arrived to support them.
He said that the Israeli soldiers led the group into a “brutal ambush” by armed settlers.
“The soldiers set us up for this attack. We were blocked on one side by settlers with guns and there was no way to get out,” he said in a video posted on social media.
The Israeli army reportedly told the BBC its forces dispersed the confrontation upon arrival.
But Nathaniel rejected this account saying the soldiers “jetted off with their jeep” just before the settlers launched their attack.
The attack was part of a wider incident in which at least 15 masked settlers were seen hurling stones and attacking other Palestinians who were harvesting olives.
The documented incident has sparked outrage over settler violence against Palestinians during the olive harvest season.
Settler attacks often include live gunfire, beatings, arson and the uprooting of olive trees, and even forceful expulsion of farmers from their lands – often under the protection of Israeli soldiers.
In 2025, more than 3,200 Palestinians have been injured in settler attacks across the West Bank, according to the United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA.
Shortly after taking office, US President Donald Trump cancelled a range of sanctions imposed on Israeli settlers by his predecessor Joe Biden.
Nathaniel shared on his social media messages that he said were between him and a US embassy official, who told him they were not in a position to offer to protect him or the US citizens in the area.
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