Israel police arrest four settlers over West Bank attack on CNN crew

JERUSALEM - Israeli police said they arrested four suspects on July 11 for allegedly damaging a vehicle carrying foreign journalists in the occupied West Bank, in an incident that US broadcaster CNN described as an attack on its crew by Israeli settlers.

According to CNN, its team was reporting near the village of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, when the incident took place.

“As the CNN team and other journalists tried to leave, a group of four settlers blocked the road with their car and tried to keep the vehicles from moving forward,” the network said, in a report on its website.

“The four settlers were wielding wooden and metal rods and stones. One settler brandished a knife and tried to puncture the tyres of CNN’s vehicle.”

CNN said the group later climbed onto another vehicle carrying journalists that was travelling behind its team and smashed its windshield.

In a statement, Israeli police said they received a report alleging that suspects had blocked a vehicle carrying several foreign journalists near Sinjil.

“IDF (military) forces from the Samaria Brigade were dispatched to the scene, secured the journalists’ passage, and detained four suspects believed to have been involved in the incident,” the statement said.

Police later “arrested the suspects, collected witness statements from the journalists, and located and seized the suspects’ vehicle”.

During a search of the vehicle, officers recovered clubs and a knife, the force added.

“The Israel Police and the IDF view any act of violence or damage to property with the utmost severity, particularly when it targets members of the media carrying out their professional duties,” the police said.

The attack on the journalists comes after prominent US lawmaker Ro Khanna said he was “detained” by armed Israeli settlers during a visit to the West Bank earlier this week.

“Israeli settlers, brandishing American made M4s, detained me & other Americans on my trip to Palestine,” Khanna said in a post on X.

When the Israeli military arrived at the scene, he added, “they sided with the settlers & continued our detention. They made a huge mistake.”

The Israeli military denied Khanna’s claim that they were involved in blocking his path on July 8, in a statement to AFP.

Since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, the United Nations has reported a sharp increase in violence attributed to Israeli settlers in the West Bank, while several Israeli ministers have continued to call for the annexation of all or part of the territory. AFP