Israeli settlers attack AFP photographer working in the West Bank

Segundo denounced his own AFP, the 58-year-old photojournalist Yaafar Ashtiye, suffered bruises on the head and back and was taken to a hospital in Nablus (north West Bank), where he remains under observation.

Ashtiye and also AFP photographer John Wessels were, according to the French agency, near Aqraba (north) when they observed an Israeli military man being detained when several Palestinians were picking olives.

According to Wessels' report, transmitted in a note by the French agency, an all-terrain vehicle approached the journalists' high speed and one of their occupants opened fire on them with real ammunition.

At least six settlers went to the reporters while shooting, then hit Ashtiye and hit him with their guns.

The aggressors also took the photographic equipment of that professional, said the AFP.

The attack will have occurred, according to the media, about 500 metres from a dozen Israeli military personnel who did not intervene.

The attack takes place in a context of increased violence in the West Bank, where human rights organisations, such as Israeli B’Tselem, denounce increasingly frequent aggressions by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, especially during the harvest of olives, of great economic and cultural importance to Palestinian communities.

Press freedom organizations have also denounced an increase in restrictions and aggression against journalists working in the area by Israeli settlers living in this occupied territory since 1967, which is considered illegal under international law.

Ashtiye himself has already suffered threats and saw his vehicle set on fire in August this year, according to the French agency, at the hands of Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

The Foreign Press Association (FPA) has already condemned the aggression suffered today by photographer AFP.

“ This attack is a flagrant attempt to intimidate the press and hinder the dissemination of true information from the West Bank. The international media have a responsibility to expose all perspectives of history and will not be allowed to dissuade themselves from physical aggression or threats,” the FPA said in a statement.

The organization expressed its “deep concern” for the 58-year-old attack on Ashtiye, who was repeatedly assaulted and stripped of his photographic equipment by a group of Israeli settlers.

According to Reporters Without Borders, 19 journalists have been arrested by Israeli authorities in the West Bank since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

According to NGO B’Tselem, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 1,100 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, among them more than 240 Palestinian children and adolescents since October 7, 2023.