Settlers Attack European Delegation in West Bank, French Mayor Seen on Ground in Pain in New Video
New video has emerged of an attack by Israeli settlers on a delegation of European diplomats, a French priest and a visiting mayor in the occupied West Bank. Within a few hours of the attack, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to cast doubt on the delegation’s account, without giving any promise of ensuring accountability.
The headline of the social media post from Netanyahu’s office was in large capital letters — ‘SERIOUS ALLEGATIONS REQUIRE SERIOUS EVIDENCE’. Although the news spread all over the world, the post contained no pledge to find those responsible and bring them to justice.
Instead, Netanyahu’s team dismissed the video of Bernard Baudoux, the mayor of Aulnoy-Aymeries in northern France, lying on the ground in pain and fear, a photograph of a diplomatic car’s broken window, and footage of masked men holding sticks and threatening diplomats and staff. The statement said, ‘These images alone do not establish the complete sequence of events or individual responsibility’, and voiced concern about a ‘coordinated campaign to smear Israel’.
The prime minister’s office also questioned the integrity of senior French, Belgian and Polish diplomats based in Jerusalem and of Catholic Church priests who witnessed the attack. The statement called on the public and responsible journalists to demand verifiable evidence, to reject hearsay, and not to turn unproven allegations into collective accusations against Jewish residents of the occupied West Bank.
According to one report by someone present as an eyewitness on the day of the incident, the attack took place after the delegation spent the morning peacefully harvesting olives with the owners in Palestinians’ olive groves in the Palestinian town of Taybeh. Shortly after 1 p.m. they were warned that settlers had attacked Palestinians harvesting olives nearby. To avoid confrontation, the group decided to leave the area, and as they moved toward their cars, masked attackers carrying sticks and issuing threats came close.
Footage from the moments before the attack shows Baudoux, together with his wife and Vincent Dollmann, the Archbishop of Cambrai, advancing toward an SUV under diplomatic security escort. Moments later the settlers attacked — according to eyewitnesses, they were determined not just to drive the foreigners away, but also to exact the ‘price’ for joining the Palestinians on their land.
As the cars bore diplomatic number plates, it was clear that the group included foreign dignitaries. And eyewitnesses said Baudoux was targeted because of his nationality, as he was wearing the mayor’s official sash. They said one attacker aggressively shouted ‘France, France’ and pushed him to the ground.
According to the video’s metadata, the time gap between the final scene of Baudoux’s altercation with the attackers and the footage of him lying on the ground, filmed by staff in a second car, is just 22 seconds. After that, the embassy security team helped him into a car, but the attack continued even as the car was leaving. Footage taken from a hill on the opposite side shows the settlers striking the SUV as it was moving away.
The force of their blows broke one of the car’s strong rear windows — in the first video it had been seen intact. A photograph of the shattered glass taken a few minutes later at a relatively safe place in Taybeh shows the intensity of the blows. The report also mentioned that had any window beside the passengers broken, the people inside could not have avoided injury.
The report further said Israel’s authorities have repeatedly tried to blur accounts of attacks on Palestinians and to weaken the statements of survivors or witnesses. But the prime minister himself applying the same tactic in the case of senior diplomats of European allies was described as a new embrace of isolationist extremism.
The previous day, in another village, American journalist Heidi Levin was admitted to hospital after a brutal attack by Israeli attackers who obstructed Palestinians harvesting olives. Netanyahu’s office described that as an ‘alleged attack’ and a ‘disputed incident’, and said the information was still unclear and under investigation.
The report commented that this message from the top leadership — that the state is unwilling to impose consequences for the attack or to seek justice — may have emboldened Saturday’s attackers.
However, an unprecedented reaction was also seen in Jerusalem. On Sunday, more than a dozen of Israel’s top former diplomats gathered outside the Foreign Ministry, where they had all worked for decades, and protested. Two former directors general, one deputy director general and many ambassadors held up banners demanding action against Israelis’ terrorist campaign against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. One banner read, addressed to Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar — ‘Stop Jewish terrorism, it is in your hands.’
